DOMESTIC | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 15, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 41.

DOMESTIC.

—A little victim of the cigarette habit, aged twelve years, recently committed suicide at Saginaw, Mich.

—The insane asylum at Stockton, Cal., reports 1,531 patients, and the cost of maintenance for the past year was 35½ cents each per day.

—On the 8th inst., Frank Port, of San Luis Obispo, Cal., and Charles Hurst, of Cloverdale, Cal., were each mistaken for deer and shot by a hunting companion. In both cases the shooting was fatal.

—In a railroad collision at Green’s Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad in Oregon, on the 6th inst., a fireman and a brakeman were instantly killed, while an engineer, a fireman, and five trainmen were seriously injured.

—A wine manufacturer of Elmira, N. Y., has called the attention of the district attorney to the fact that the churches of that city are violating the law by giving away wine at the communion. The grand jury will take cognizance of the matter.

—The Woman’s American Protective Association held a Supreme Council in Washington City last week. Mrs. M. E. Richardson, of this city, was elected supreme vice president. She is also grand president of the state organization in California.

—Near the town of Summit, in Benton County, Ore., on the night of the 4th inst., a family consisting of mother and three children were burned with the house, and no one knows anything of the cause of the disaster. The sad incident was not discovered by the nearest neighbors until the next morning.

—John and Cæsar Cummings, who were to have been hanged September 26, at San Quentin, Cal., and who were granted a reprieve until the 30th inst., have had their sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. Their crime was robbery and murder. It appears that three parties were engaged in the robbery, but the one who dealt the fatal blow when the victim showed fight, turned state’s evidence and was not prosecuted.

—Last week a number of mining men sailed from San Francisco for Korea. They represent a syndicate of capitalists who have a concession from the king for opening certain mines said to be valuable, and for building a railroad from Chemulpo 180 miles into the interior to the mines. A ten-stamp mill was sent over before the war between China and Japan, but the enterprise had to be temporarily abandoned on account of that conflict. The capitalists are mostly Colorado men.

—Fifty Chinese employed in various capacities around the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, peremptorily quit work last week because their Chinese boss was discharged. The manager of the hotel had found it convenient to employ Chinese cleaners and dishwashers through the agency of the one who had charge of them. It leaked out that he was exacting $2.50 a month from each one of them, and he was discharged. Strange as it may appear, his victims all quit because of his discharge. The manager has now decided to employ white men.

—California has an irrigation law, under which the people may organize water districts and utilize the natural water supply for irrigation. Another law was passed in 1893 enabling the people to disorganize these districts if they should desire to do so. But as all the districts had to issue bonds in the beginning to raise money for necessary improvements, the bondholders naturally want to continue the bonds indefinitely, and have combined to oppose disorganization. An attempt is being made to have the Supreme Court declare the last law unconstitutional, and, in case of failure in this, to have it repealed by the next Legislature. If the capitalists can succeed in electing legislators who will repeal the law, they will be prepared to perpetuate the bonds as a permanent investment. The scheme is about the wickedest trust plot that has yet been projected.

—Bishop Keane, rector of the Catholic University at Washington, has been deposed by order of the pope. The matter has created quite a sensation in the capital city, not only among Catholics, but in Protestant circles, where the bishop was quite popular. It is claimed that Cardinal Satolli and Mgr. Schroeder have not properly represented American conditions to the Vatican, and the same powerful party has kept the pope and his advisers in ignorance of the differences existing between the Roman Catholics of the United States and those of the rest of the world.

—Mrs. Phœbe J. Clymer, of this city, aged eighty-two years, who had been totally blind for thirty-six years, died on the 8th inst. Her blindness had been caused by neuralgia of the optic nerve, and, strange as it may seem, her eyesight returned a few days before her death, and she was permitted to see her friends. A great deal of money was spent in efforts to restore her sight, and she had lived with one and another of her children during the years of her affliction. They claim the blessing of a few days’ restoration of sight to have been in response to earnest prayers to that end.

—At first the people of San Francisco thought it a fine piece of postal accommodation to have the street-cars utilized as mail-carriers. It turns out, however, to be a tremendous weapon in the hands of the street-car monopoly; for every driver of a vehicle, or any one else for that matter, who may happen to cause the slightest delay to a car is liable to be brought before a United States court for obstructing the mails, and fined $100, with imprisonment. It seems that everything, from government policy down, is being turned to the advantage of the rich corporations in these last days.

—The yacht Coronet, which recently arrived at San Francisco from Yokohama, reports a narrow escape from a waterspout in mid-ocean. The column of water was about a hundred yards across, traveled at a frightful rate, and passed within a few hundred yards of the vessel. The officers of the bark Santiago also report the passage of a waterspout while the vessel lay in a dead calm in latitude 44° 11' north, longitude 146° 50' west. The body of water bore down from the west directly toward the vessel until within about a thousand feet of it, and then veered and passed by on the north side.

—Science is popularly supposed to demonstrate all the claims of science; that is, when men who pass as scientists say anything not within the absolute knowledge of the common mind, it is taken for granted. To such an extent does this credulity obtain, that the merest supposition from a scientific standpoint is often taken up, and popularly held as demonstrated fact. But, as a matter of fact, the discoveries, or supposed discoveries, of science are but the assertions of previous scientific error. The latest astronomical announcement of this character comes from the Lowell Observatory, at Flagstaff, A. T., under date of the 7th inst. The astronomers of that institution claim to have discovered that the planets Mercury and Venus each turns once on its axis during one revolution about the sun, making the day just equal to the year on these planets. They find further that Venus is not cloud covered, as has been reported, but has about it a thick atmosphere, while Mercury has none.