SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 2, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 47.

SECULAR.

—The Cambria Iron Works at Johnstown, Pa., closed down last week, leaving 5,000 men out of employment.

—It is stated on what appears to be good authority that Bismarck and Emperor William have buried the hatchet.

—News came to Victoria, B. C., by steamer, on the 24th inst., that the Russian steamer Alphonse Zeeveeke had been burned off the Siberian Coast, and sixty lives lost.

—The Canadian Chinese restriction act, passed in 1886, is about to be tested in the Supreme Court. High officers in the government have admitted that the law is unconstitutional.

—By a collision of trains at Kingsbury, Ind., on the 22d ult., twelve persons were killed and about a score injured. The accident was caused by the mistake of a trainman in opening a switch.

—The Haitian war ship Alexandre was foundered off Cape Tiburon, on the southwest coast of Haiti, September 6, and all of the eighty persons on board, excepting one sailor, were drowned.

—Six Federal officers—commissioners and deputy marshals—have been indicted by the Federal Grand Jury at Birmingham, Ala., for various phases of corrupt practice in their respective offices.

—President Cleveland has nominated Attorney Wm. B. Hornblower, of New York, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, in place of Justice Blatchford, recently deceased.

—A dispatch from Buenos Ayres, Argentine Republic, dated September 21, says: "The revolution is spreading; the government was defeated in a battle at Tucuama, and anarchy prevails there."

—The Union Pacific Railroad employees have voted not to submit to a reduction of wages. On the Nebraska division the men voted to make a loan to the company of 10 per cent of their salaries until January 1.

—The rate war between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe Railroad Companies has come to a sudden termination, and the old round-trip fare of $80 between California general points and Chicago is to be restored October 1.

—Advices from Hanford, Cal., say that very few Chinamen are now employed in the vineyards. Much complaint is being made by the whites about low wages, as the vineyards are paying only $1.00 a day and board for grape pickers.

—A snowstorm swept over the northern part of England last week, followed by a spell of unusually warm weather. Dispatches from Italy say that the Apennine Mountains are covered with snow, and an unusually hard winter is expected.

—John G. Wooley, one of Mr. Moody's coadjutors, and a man fully trusted by the W. C. T. U., has proved a defaulter to the amount of about $14,000 of funds raised for Rest Island Retreat, a proposed institute for inebriates, about forty miles below St. Paul, Minn.

—The statement that Abraham Lincoln was a Spiritualist and had a medium living in the White House with him has gained such wide publicity that ex-Minister Robert T. Lincoln has taken the trouble to deny it. He says there is not an iota of truth in the story.

—In New York City, September 20, about 3,000 Italians paraded the streets in celebration of the twenty-third anniversary of the unification of Italy. Mayor Gilroy declined to raise the Italian flag on the City Hall, whereat there was great indignation on the part of the paraders.

—The recent train robbery in Michigan and a still later event at Centralia, Ill., indicate that railroad hands have gone into the business. It would naturally be supposed that they have superior advantages for the work, but it appears that they are hardly as successful as some others.

—A riot between Irish and Italian laborers, numbering about 400, occurred in Brooklyn, N. Y., on Sunday, the 24th inst., in which a large number were seriously injured. Twenty of the principals were arrested. If such a scene should occur in California, it would be laid to the fact that we have no State Sunday law.

—A brutal murder of six persons was committed on a farm nine miles from Washington, Ind., September 19. The family consisted of Denson Wrattan, his mother, wife, and three children. Mr. Wrattan was ill with typhoid fever, unable to sit up. It is supposed the murder was committed in hope of finding money in the house.

—A press dispatch dated South Bend, Wash., September 23, says: "Black bears are exceedingly numerous in Pacific County this year. An unusually large number have been killed, but there are enough remaining to create havoc in the young orchards. On the Rose ranch a fine lot of young trees were destroyed by bears last night."

—General Barnes, of the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Midwinter Fair, being asked what would be the probable effect of an extensively signed petition in favor of Sunday closing, replied that the committee had their hands so full with the matter of getting the Fair opened, that they had not time to consider the question of closing it.

—The trouble that has long existed between union and non-union sailors in San Francisco took a serious turn early in the morning of the 24th inst., when an attempt to blow up a non-union boarding house with dynamite resulted in the death of two men and the fatal wounding of three others; in addition to these, John Curtin, Jr., son of the proprietor of the house, was severely injured.

—The van of the army of unemployed men from Colorado and other points eastward has made its appearance in California. At Mojave, on the 21st inst., 150 of them took possession of a Southern Pacific freight train for San Francisco, and 75 more boarded a Los Angeles train. The trainmen were powerless to drive them off. It was also announced that 300 more were soon to arrive on the Atlantic and Pacific.

—A San Francisco supervisor proposes to reduce the wages of mechanics and laborers employed by the city and use the saving in the employment of more men. For instance, it is proposed to reduce the pay of carpenters from $3.50 to $2.50, for the benefit of their fellow workmen out of employment. On this proposition the Examiner comments in this way: "How would it do to propose that a capitalist with an income of $350,000 a year should give $100,000 of it to the unemployed? The proportional sacrifice would be the same as that involved in the deduction of a dollar from the daily wages of a man earning $3.50 a day, and the actual sacrifice a good deal less."

—Two students of the Northern Indiana Normal School, at Valparaiso, attempted to rob the safe of the institution one night last week, but were frightened away by the screams of the two young lady secretaries. As they ran away, they were pursued by a crowd, and as they fired back at their pursuers, they were themselves shot down. One was instantly killed, and the other was wounded and captured.

—Johnson Sides, a Piute Indian and leader of about 150 men and women, who came over from Nevada to pick hops in California, complains bitterly of the Chinese and Japanese, who have run down the wages to such a small scale. He says the Indians spend all their money here, and ought to have a better show. "If Chinaman and Jap get born here, register here, live here, all right. But now it no fair to Indian."

—The people of France have become so enthusiastic in their preparations to honor the visit of the Russian fleet that the czar deems it advisable to discourage the ovation. It is said that the belligerent propensities of the French people are at war heat, and they are anxious for a conflict with either Germany or England. Complications in African interests are said to give pretext for calling England to account.

—Coney Island, N. Y., is Democratic. The proposition to enforce the law against prize fighting in a coming "great event" is met by the statement that a certain interested party "has 2,000 votes in his pocket, and if there is any effort made by the present authorities to stop the fight, Coney Island will surely go Republican." Thus we have the sentiment of the "two great political parties" in that particular corner of this "Christian nation."

—The San Francisco Examiner (Democratic) charges that President Cleveland, in his attitude of hesitancy to execute the Chinese Registration Law, is being "bullied mainly by the churches." While the President is about the last man anyone would suppose could be "bullied," there is no doubt of the disposition of a large element in the churches to coerce any or all departments of the government, and the fact is becoming more and more apparent.

—At Roanoke, Va., on the 20th ult., a mob bent on lynching a negro who was in jail on a charge of attempting to murder a white woman, was fired upon by the militia and police. When the crowd had been dispersed, it was found that nine men were dead, and about twenty wounded. That night the prisoner was taken from the custody of the police and hanged, and afterward his body was burned. Indignation against the mayor and captain of the military company ran so high that they left the city.

—It is said that the Pan-Slavic idea is being again agitated in a quiet way as never before, and is destined to add a troublesome feature to the perplexities of European politics. Pan-Slavism means Slavic rule from the Arctic Ocean to the Hellespont, embracing Eastern Austria, the Balkan States and provinces, Greece, and Turkey in Europe, with Russia as the head of the vast confederation. It is thought that a war, with the Triple Alliance against Russia and France, would develop this idea to a surprising extent.

—A great sensation was created in Vienna last week by the discovery of the secret meeting place of Anarchists who have lately been flooding the city with threatening pamphlets and placards. Among the various articles found were a printing press, piles of paper, a large supply of type, and stacks of Anarchist pamphlets ready for distribution. In the cellar were found cases filled with revolvers, and a large chest full of bombs ready for loading, and with all the necessary explosive charges close at hand. It is thought that this is only one of a number of such places in the city.