SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 28, 1892

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 4.

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SECULAR.

—A fire in Tokio, Japan, on the 13th inst., destroyed 600 houses.

—The loss by the great dock fire at Cardiff, Wales, on the 19th inst., is estimated at $325,000.

—A recent dispatch says that all the trades unions in Buenos Ayres have entered upon a strike.

—Heavy snowstorms are reported in portions of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

—A commission has been appointed to negotiate with the Nez Percez Indians in Idaho for their surplus lands.

—Five employés in a brush factory in Marco, France, died last week with a mysterious illness resembling the plague.

—The Piedmont Springs Hotel, a suburban resort of this city of twenty years' standing, was destroyed by fire on the 17th inst.

—Two children named Beattie were burned to death last week, near Hiawatha, Kansas, by setting a straw stack on fire with matches.

—At Claribel Station, twelve miles from Modesto, Cal., on the 17th inst., a warehouse and 4,000 tons of wheat were burned. Loss, $110,000.

—The President has appointed Wm. Potter, of Pennsylvania, minister to Italy, and D. P. Thompson, of Oregon, minister to Turkey.

—Francois, the French Anarchist who is charged with having caused a disastrous explosion in a Paris restaurant, has been arrested in London.

—The International Monetary Conference, which is to assemble in Brussels on the 22d inst., is attracting the attention of the whole financial world.

—Eighteen thousand pounds of dynamite will be used by the government in a rain-producing experiment near San Antonio, Texas, the present week.

—Rev. J. B. Moffet, a Baptist pastor and Prohibition leader, of North Danville, Va., was shot by a political opponent about election time, and died on the 14th inst.

—The Government of France asks the Chamber of Deputies to pass a bill authorizing the suppression of Anarchist papers. The request is causing a sensational discussion.

—The number of Chicago saloon licenses has passed the 7,000 mark, and it is thought that during the World's Fair there will be between 9,000 and 10,000 saloons in full blast.

—A Hamburg, Germany, dispatch of the 17th inst. says: "The police of Altona have arrested twenty-eight Anarchists, of whom seven upon examination have been detained for prosecution."

—On the 6th inst. the convicts in the prison at Tarragona, Spain, overpowered the guards and broke out. The troops were summoned, but the convicts were not secured until nine had been killed and sixteen wounded.

—The little town of Redbud, Ill., was completely wrecked by a tornado on the 17th inst. Three persons were fatally and eleven others seriously injured. Houses, barns, fences, and orchards were all leveled to the ground.

—The St. Petersburg Novosti of the 17th inst. declares the necessity for an international agreement in order that a common stand may be taken against the scourge of cholera. It further states that the disease is increasing there.

—After a few weeks of stormy political times in Hawaii, a new ministry has been selected, that seems to stand the test of opposition, and when the last steamer left Honolulu for San Francisco, quiet reigned in the sunny little kingdom.

—On the 15th inst., eight cases of smallpox were discovered on one block in Brooklyn, N. Y. And in Chicago, on the same day, a young Swedish girl who had just arrived from the old country was found to be afflicted with the disease.

—It is publicly stated that the cotton manufacturers of Blackstone and the carpet corporation of Lowell, Mass., will advance wages on the 5th of December. The advance by the latter will be five per cent., that of the former is not yet announced.

—A disastrous prairie fire was started in Rock County, Nebraska, on the 20th inst. There was extensive destruction of property, and many persons had to seek safety in wells and caves, and other places where the fire could not reach them.

—A large tract of land near Stockton, Cal., has been purchased for a colony of negroes from Tennessee and Georgia, said to number 3,600. The first company passed through Ogden, Utah, on the 15th inst., en route to their new home, and others are soon to follow.

—At a Democratic ratification meeting, held at Mountain View, Ark., on the 16th inst., some fireworks stored in the building exploded, causing the death of four persons. Fifteen others were seriously injured, some of them fatally, and the building was badly wrecked.

—A special agent of the Census Bureau has been discharged for giving to the government false information regarding Bering Sea matters. It is claimed that his reports had been especially misleading in regard to affairs in dispute between the United States and Great Britain.

—A Rome dispatch tells of an exciting Socialist meeting in that city on the 16th inst. At the close of the meeting a procession marched through the streets singing political songs. Meeting a detachment of police, a fight ensued, in which four persons were seriously wounded.

—The Association for the Advancement of Women was in session in Memphis, Tenn., last week. In discussing the prospects, the statement was made that the Jews favored the movement, while the Lutherans opposed it, and the Catholics dampened the cause by neither favoring nor opposing.

—The Order of Railway Telegraphers announce that unless the Queen and Crescent and East Tennessee and Georgia Railways comply with their demand for an increase of wages equal to $7.00 a month for each man, there will be a general strike of the 1,800 operators employed by those roads.

—Officers of a steamer which arrived in New York, last week, from West Indian ports, report that the Government of Hayti is again called upon to contend with rebellion. This time it is the former supporters of the government that are aiding the cause of the noted revolutionist, Legitime, against his old associates.

—Late advices from Apia, Samoa, show that there is much disquiet in the group. Disturbances have occurred among the natives of the Tutuila Islands, arising from the claims of rival chiefs to the title of Mauga. Some fighting has occurred at Pago-Pago Bay, where the town was almost completely destroyed.

—The recent explosion of a dynamite bomb in Paris has stirred the Austrian police into renewed activity against Anarchists and Socialists. A large number of arrests of extremists have already been made in this city, Prague, and Gratz. The Berlin and London police are coöperating with the Viennese police in tracking the Anarchists.

—The Skagit River, Washington, is reported to be at flood height. The towns of Mount Vernon, Hamilton, Sedro, Fir, and Skagit City were all under water on the 20th inst. Great destruction of property all along the river is the result, bridges, wharfs, dams, etc., being damaged by floating logs and a rushing current. It is also reported that several lives were lost at Sedro.

—The Amalgamated Association at Homestead, Pa., has officially called off the great strike of the Carnegie iron workers. The strike has continued five months; has involved at times nearly 10,000 workmen; has caused a loss in wages of about $2,000,000, besides thirty-five lives, and an expense to the State of about $500,000. The loss to the Carnegie Company is not known.

—Count Tolstoi, in the Russian Gazette, calls attention to the continued miserable condition of the peasantry in Russia. He says famine again threatens the already afflicted districts. The rye harvest is as bad as it was in 1891 and oats are an utter failure. There is a complete dearth of material for fires, and the people are exhausted by last winter's misery. The outlook is as black as possible.

—The Board of Supervisors of San Benito County, Cal., have passed an ordinance closing the saloons of the county at 10 o'clock Saturday evening and not permitting them to open until 6 o'clock Monday morning. All entrances must be made of clear glass, affording an unobstructed view from the outside. The provisions are similar to those of the ordinance now in force at San Jose, but the penalties are more severe.

—At a meeting of the presidents of all seaboard trunk lines, doing business to the West, held in New York, last week, it was decided that the only way to prevent the demoralization of rates was to return to the old plan of pooling the business, pure and simple, as was done before the Interstate Commerce law made it illegal. It is no less illegal now, but the officers saw no other way out of the difficulty, and evidently resolved to take chances that the law will not be rigorously enforced against them.

—Spain and Portugal are "Christian nations," according to popular theory and popular jurisprudence; but their crowned heads enjoy the bullfight entertainment. The king and queen of Portugal recently paid a visit to the capital of Spain, and among the festivities in their honor was a bullfight. "The show was a great success and was thoroughly enjoyed," says a press dispatch, "and the king of Portugal in a moment of enthusiasm, threw his diamond scarf pin at the feet of the toreador."

—France is on the eve of a great sensation. The chief justice, M. Ricard, has ordered the prosecution of the administrators of the Panama Canal. The figures which serve as a basis for the prosecution show that out of 1,300,000,000 francs only 471,000,000 francs were used properly. The remainder disappeared. Some went to the newspapers, which received 20,000,000 francs, and some to the politicians, who received 8,000,000 francs. The contractors are to be prosecuted as accomplices, for they expended on the work only 7,000,000 francs out of 25,000,000 francs. It is now quite clear that the canal will never be completed as a French enterprise.

—The powder house of a firm of street contractors, located in the suburbs of San Francisco, was blown up on the 19th inst. with a dreadful shock, which was felt for miles around. One of the employees went to the house to get some giant powder to put in a blast hole that had been dug in a neighboring bank, and it is said he went in with a pipe in his mouth. He had just stepped inside when the explosion occurred, and, although the structure was entirely demolished, the man himself was thrown sixty feet away with but little injury. The buildings occupied by the grading camp were wrecked, together with two adjacent villages, and every house within three blocks was more or less damaged. The foreman and cook of the grading company were seriously injured, as also an old lady who lived in one of the wrecked cottages.