SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 8, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 26.

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SECULAR.

—Frederick Douglass has been appointed Consul-General to Hayti.

—Maria Mitchel, the noted astronomer, died at Lynn, Mass., June 28.

—The French Atlantic cable arrived at Fox Island, Nova Scotia, the 29th ult.

—General Simon Cameron died at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on the 26th ult.

—Fire at Bradford, Eng., destroyed factories to the extent of $250,000, June 23.

—The British bark Equator from Buenos Ayres has been lost with all her crew.

—Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, wife of ex-President Hayes, died at Fremont, Ohio, June 24.

—Twenty-five thousand people are still being fed daily at the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

—The United States steamship Adams, at Honolulu, has been ordered to Samoa to take the place of the Alert and Nipsic.

—The committee of the Chamber of Deputies, at Paris, has approved the bill for the relief of the Panama Canal Company.

—An immense ice field on the Atlantic was reported by the steamship Hungaria, which recently arrived at Baltimore from Hamburg.

—A daring attempt was recently made to blow up Harvard hospital with dynamite. Fortunately the plot was discovered before any damage was done.

—A triple collision of freight cars occurred in Latrobe, Pa., on the morning of June 26. Thirty cars were wrecked and over twenty lives were lost.

—William Walter Phelps, late Commissioner to the Samoan Conference at Berlin, has been appointed Minister to Germany by President Harrison.

—At Kansas City, recently, a divorce suit was filed, put on trial, and a decree granted in the shortest time on record. The whole affair occupied only ten minutes.

—The Governor of Michigan has signed the Local Option bill. This ensures practical prohibition in over one-half the counties of the State, so far at least as the provisions of the bill will admit.

—A fire broke out in Johnstown, Pa., June 24, and swept away twenty-five buildings. Most of the houses destroyed had been more or less damaged by the flood, although many of them were filled with household goods which had been saved.

—A gigantic cantilever railway bridge, costing $10,000,000, is to be built across the St. Lawrence River at Quebec. The total length of the bridge with its approaches will be over six miles, as the river is four and a half miles wide at this point. The top of the bridge will be 408 feet above high water level, and the largest ocean steamers will be able to pass under it.

—The Navy department has directed that on and after July 4, 1889, the national flag of the Navy shall consist of forty-two stars in honor of the new States. The flags of the War Department, however, will not be altered until the four new States have been formally admitted.

—One of the most extensive quartz-bearing ledges ever discovered has been recently opened up in Alaska by the Alaska Mining and Milling Company. Although the ore is of a low grade, there are vast quantities in sight, and it is said to be the largest gold mine in the world.

—Advices from the west of Africa confirm reports of the condition of Stanley, the explorer. It is stated that owing to the privations to which he has been exposed, his hair has turned snow white. His clothes are in rags and on account of being without shoes he is obliged to use skins to cover his feet.

—The Standard Oil Company is at last to have a formidable rival. Negotiations are now in progress in Cincinnati, Ohio, looking to the consolidation of two immense corporations into one powerful oil company. The combined capital stock is $15,000,000, with the privilege of increasing it to $25,000,000.

—Fifty persons were recently prostrated in Woodstock, Ont., from drinking so-called lemonade made from sugar of lead instead of tartaric acid. Fifteen of the victims were expected to die at last accounts. The druggist who made the fatal mistake has fled, and his building has been demolished by the outraged citizens.

—A syndicate of leading English iron and steel men have purchased upwards of 60,000 acres of mineral land in Kentucky and Tennessee. A new town by the name of Middlesborough will be built in Kentucky, and immense steel and iron mills erected. Over $4,000,000 in cash has already been paid out, and $7,000,000 more is pledged for the new enterprise.

—Medical men are extremely puzzled over the case of James B. Hill, who recently died in San Francisco from the effects of a broken neck. The spinal cord was entirely severed and three of the vertebrae badly fractured, yet he continued to live in a perfectly conscious state for a period of five weeks. The case is pronounced to be one of the strangest in the annals of surgery.

—Dispatches from Shanghai are to the effect that Russia has occupied Deer Island, in the waters of Corea, as a coaling and naval point. A man-of-war has been stationed there, and nobody is allowed to land or leave without a permit from the Admiral. In the present condition of European affairs it is difficult to tell just how much such an action as this on the part of Russia may mean. It is possible that serious complications may arise.

—David D. Houston, a prominent merchant of Middletown, N. Y., has commenced suit in the United States District Court of California for the recovery of a large amount of San Francisco property. A considerable portion of the city is embraced in the complaint, and over $300,000,000 are involved. It is said that several eminent lawyers have undertaken to carry the case through the United States courts, and speak very confidently of success in establishing the claim.