DOMESTIC | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 17, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 50.

DOMESTIC.

—St. John's Episcopal Church, one of the old landmarks in this city, was burned at an early hour on the 13th inst.

—Reports from the western part of Washington, especially the Puget Sound region, state that great damage to orchards has resulted from recent frosts.

—By an explosion of gasoline, which occurred during a fire in the smelting works of the Mountain Mine, at Keswick, Shasta County, Cal., on the 8th inst., twenty-three men were killed.

—Rev. Dr. McLean, of Los Angeles, wants to be appointed a policeman, so that he can wear a star and people will not be backward in telling him their troubles. So far, however, the chief of police objects.

—A young man named Cheesman, of Berkeley, Cal., made his eighth unsuccessful attempt at suicide last week, and is expected to live to try it again. The doctors say his mania is induced by the use of cigarettes.

—Ex-Queen Liliuokalani, of Hawaii, arrived in San Francisco last week. She came unannounced, and went to a hotel like anybody else. She declined to state whether she is on any other business than to see the country.

—The measures being forced to the front in Congress are: The recognition of Cuban independence, the Pacific Railroads Refunding Bill, and some kind of a tariff amendment for the temporary relief of the stringent condition of the national treasury.

—Representatives of the Japanese Legation at Washington state that it has been practically decided to build two cruisers in this country for that government. It is also decided to have one of them built at Philadelphia, and the other at San Francisco.

—The new Holland submarine torpedo boat, under construction at Baltimore, is about ready for launching. It is designed to run under water and fire torpedoes under war-ships. Electricity is to be used as motive power, for lights, and also for discharging the torpedoes. The cost is to be $150,000.

—Serious flaws are being found in our naval outfit. The great battleship Texas is pronounced unfit for seagoing purposes, and the turrets of the Massachusetts are said to be utterly worthless as a means of protection for the guns and gunners which they are supposed to shield from the missiles of an antagonist.

—Samuel P. Putnam, the noted freethought editor and lecturer, and Miss Mary Collins, also a freethought lecturer, were found dead in the latter's room in Boston, on the 12th inst., death being caused by asphyxiation. Putnam was a graduate of a Chicago theological seminary, and was for a few years a minister of the Gospel; but he finally became a Unitarian, and thence developed into a leading apostle of so-called Freethought.

—As might have been expected, there are various opinions regarding some features of President Cleveland's annual message; but his expression on the subject of trusts and monopolies will certainly find endorsement by all but those who are in some way interested in such investments. The President says: "Their tendency is to crush out individual independence and to hinder or prevent the free use of human faculties and the full development of human character. Through them the farmer, the artisan and the small trader is in danger of dislodgment from the proud position of being his own master, watchful of all that touches his country's prosperity, in which he has an individual lot, and interested in all that affects the advantages of business, of which he is a factor, to be relegated to the level of a mere appurtenance to a great machine, with little free will, with no duty but that of passive obedience, and with little hope or opportunity of rising in the scale of responsible and healthful citizenship. To the instinctive belief that such is the inevitable trend of trusts and monopolies is due the widespread and deep-seated popular aversion in which they are held, and the not unreasonable insistence that, whatever may be their incidental economic advantages, their general effect upon personal character, prospects and usefulness can not be otherwise than injurious."