p. 31 | SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 13, 1893

SECULAR.

—The Irondale Rolling Mills, at Anderson, Ind., were burned on the 1st inst. Loss, $150,000.

—An English gardener living near Tacoma, Wash., is said to have succeeded in cultivating the licorice plant.

—The Canadians and the Australians are agitating the project of uniting the two colonies by a Pacific cable line.

—The Butte, Mont., city council has declined to confirm the appointment of a colored man on the police force.

—The extra session of Congress, which was convened in August to take action on the silver question, adjourned on the 2d inst.

—In Congress the House Committee on Territories has reported favorably on the bill for the admission of Utah to the Union of States.

—A. Lusk & Co., San Francisco fruit packers, take all the highest awards at the World's Fair, in all the competitive departments in their line.

—Political matters are somewhat mixed in Denver, Colo. At the local election to be held this week there are eleven tickets in the field.

—In Portland, Oregon, on the 1st inst., an electric street car plunged through an open drawbridge into the river and sank. Eight persons were drowned.

—All the printers in the book and job printing establishments of Albany, N. Y., including the State printing office, have struck for a reduction in hours.

—At Marseilles, France, a great strike of street car employes is in progress. On the 5th inst. several cars were burned, and considerable track was torn up.

—Cholera continues to spread in the Crimea. It is said that twelve doctors, twenty-four field surgeons, and thirty sisters are detailed to look after patients.

—The McCreary Bill, extending for six months the time in which Chinese residents may have the privilege of registering, has passed both Houses of Congress.

—It is reported that dire distress prevails among the foreigners and laboring classes in Rio Janeiro on account of the suspension of business caused by the revolution.

—Owing to the usual misunderstanding, a malady now epidemic in railroad circles, two freight trains collided near Salvia, Nevada, on the 5th inst., and six men were killed.

—A fleet of eighteen British war ships has been gathered at Gibraltar, in anticipation, it is said, of the combined movement of the ships of Russia, France, and Spain toward Tangier.

—A daring highway robbery was committed in the main street of South Riverside, Cal., on the night of the 2d inst., when a citizen was severely beaten by footpads and robbed of his watch and chain.

—The steamship City of Alexandria, from Havana to New York, was burned on the 2d inst., and thirty-five lives were lost. The disaster occurred when the vessel was only twenty-five miles out from Havana.

—A dispatch from Kazan, in the eastern part of Siberia, tells of a great conflagration resulting from an explosion in a benzine oil warehouse. In addition to a great destruction of property, there were many lives lost.

—Now that the law requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase a stated amount of silver bullion each month has been repealed, Senator Stewart, of Nevada, has introduced a bill for the free coinage of silver.

—A bill has passed Congress, and been signed by the President, suspending during the present year the statute requiring $100 worth of work annually on unpatented mining claims. An exception is made of South Dakota.

—A cold wave and a fall of half an inch of snow were reported from most parts of Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin on the 1st inst. The cold wave extended throughout the Northwest, but the snow was not so general.

—An attempt to introduce the Faribault system in the Thirty-fourth Ward public schools of Pittsburg, Pa., by the election of four nuns as teachers, is meeting with strong opposition from the members of patriotic organizations.

—A Pittsburg dispatch says the police are having no end of trouble with cranks, who threaten to take human life. Three are locked up, and five more, who have been writing threatening letters, are being sought by the authorities.

—It is reported that a powder magazine of the Brazilian revolutionists recently exploded, doing considerable damage to some of the shipping in the harbor of Rio Janeiro, among the casualties being the death of four English naval officers.

—In New York City, on the 2d inst., a boiler explosion in a street car stable caused the death of six persons and the serious injury of eight others. A dozen horses were also killed, and the buildings were damaged to the extent of $10,000.

—On the night of the 3d inst. three negro men and a woman were hanged to a tree near Lynchburg, Tenn., because it is said they were concerned in a number of barn burnings that had occurred in the vicinity. They were all connected with one family.

—The government of Brazil has purchased five new vessels in New York, which have been fitted out as warriors to cope with the rebel navy at Rio Janeiro. These are all armed in the latest and most approved manner, and to the fleet is added an English torpedo boat.

—The space originally designed for exhibitors at the San Francisco Fair is already far short of supplying the demand. It is now proposed to put the county exhibits on newly ceded ground. The British residents of the Pacific Coast are agitating the matter of a British auxiliary.

—A London dispatch says that the representatives of the miners and mine owners have again failed to agree, and the great strike will be continued. The result will be great suffering, not only among the miner's families, but among the poor of the large cities, on account of the high price of coal.

—The Japanese residents of Corea, numbering about 7,000, are becoming alarmed because of the encroachments of the Chinese upon their trade. The trade in shirtings, which was originally a Japanese monopoly, has fallen entirely into the hands of the Chinamen, and the curio trade is said to be fast following.

—The Hankow correspondent of the Shanghai Mercury says: "I hear that one of the leading Russian firms is exporting a good quantity of tea plants and appliances, with the intention of starting a plantation in the mountains of Southeast Russia. A batch of Chinese laborers is also said to be going to Russia under contract with the same firm."

—A train on the Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad was held up at Oliphant, Ark., on the night of the 2d inst., by seven masked men, who went through the cars and robbed all the passengers of their valuables. The conductor, in attempting to resist the robbers, was killed. Two of the robbers were afterward captured, with considerable plunder.

—The Costa Rica Government has surrendered to the United States a New York embezzler named Weeks, although there is no extradition treaty between the two governments. The only prominent official who opposed the extradition was the Minister of Finance, who has resigned, and will make the incident a political issue in the next presidential election, himself becoming a candidate.

—A gentleman who resides in Auckland, N. Z., but is interested in South African mines, was in San Francisco last week, and to a press reporter he expressed great hopes of the African gold mines. He says: "For the labor and the money invested, South Africa is to-day yielding a better return in gold than California or Australia ever gave. The gold of South Africa is practically inexhaustible."

—Frank Jugler, the saloon keeper of Cherokee, Iowa, who dynamited the house of Elder R. L. Patterson, of that place, December 19, 1891, has been convicted of attempted murder. Jugler is a saloon keeper whom Patterson prosecuted, and whose beer had been seized and stored under the prosecutor's house. On the night before the beer was to be destroyed, Jugler exploded a bomb under the house, wrecking it.

—On the 31st ult. the South African Matabeles, to the number of about 5,000, attacked the British forces, but were repulsed with great loss. Report says they left 500 dead on the field, carrying with them hundreds of wounded, many of whom were afterward found dead. The British loss was 2 killed and 6 wounded. They waited until the savages were close upon them, en masse, and then opened fire with rifles and rapid-fire guns.

—Rev. Doc Taylor, a "Moonshiner" convicted of murder, was hanged at Wise Court House, Virginia, on the 27th ult. He preached his own funeral sermon, principally in vindication of Spiritualism. He was dressed in white linen, in which he said he would rise from the dead three days after his execution and appear to the moonshiners (illicit liquor distillers) and other mountaineers. But the officers shut off his resurrection in three days by deferring his burial.

—At Santander, Spain, on the 3d inst., a ship load of dynamite was exploded, causing great disaster. The wharves, shipping, and neighboring buildings were torn to fragments, and the whole city was terribly shaken. Fire immediately followed the wreck, and the people were for some time so dazed with the shock of the explosion that they were powerless to cope with the fire. The latest report was that the known dead numbered over 300, and the number of injured and missing was enormous.

—Of the 155 national banks suspended between January 1 and September of this year, 77 have resumed business. During the same time 560 State and private banks suspended, of which 72 have resumed. Of the latter classes of suspensions, 498 were located west of the Ohio River. It is worthy of notice that national bank notes are not impaired by the failure of the particular bank whose name they bear. Stockholders, depositors, and the government may lose by the failure, but the notes of issue, being guaranteed by the government, are not affected.