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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 8, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 19.

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Secular News.

By Editor

  • Thurlow Weed has been titled LL. D.
  • The Berlin Industrial Exposition was formally opened May 1.
  • The village of Gratchenko, on the Volga, has been totally destroyed by fire.
  • Nearly the entire business portion of Gorham, N. H., was burned recently.
  • The Russo-Chinese negotiations have been broken off, Russia refusing to surrender Kuldja.
  • The Pope is endeavoring through delegates to quell the war in Chili, Peru, and Bolivia.
  • Vice-President Wheeler has been called away from the U. S. Senate and Washington by sickness.
  • The St. Petersburg Golos says 12,000 prisoners and their families will be exiled from Novgorod to Siberia during the coming summer.
  • The Congressional Committee on the cause of business depression, will visit California in July, and take testimony regarding Chinese labor.
  • A mountain of volcanic glass has been discovered in the National Park, in Montana. The surface is so smooth that it has not been explored.
  • The murderers of the Indians in Mariposa, Cal., have been acquitted. The Stockton Herald says "the trial was not much more than a form."
  • The fulfillment of the provisions of the Berlin Conference is not yet complete. Russia, Austria, and minor powers are still contending over them.
  • At New York a loan of $2,000,000 has been secured on six-per-cent. bonds of the North Pacific Railroad, for extending the road 200 miles from Bismarck to the Yellowstone.
  • Two parties of surveyors left Portland on the 26th ult., for the head of navigation on the Columbia river, to make preliminary surveys for the North Pacific Railroad from there eastward.
  • The Government of Brazil decided last month to send a mission to China, to negotiate a treaty with its Government, for the right to import Chinese laborers for work on the plantations.
  • The war in South Africa is likely to be prolonged. The Zulus seem to have recovered from their late defeat, and appear in large numbers. The Boers also appear belligerent toward the English.
  • Earth taken from a ranch in the Sierra Valley, Sierra county Cal., showed as much grasshopper eggs as earth. Unless the insects migrate after hatching, every spear of grass in the valley will be destroyed.
  • The civil Damage Bill, passed by the Massachusetts Legislature, which permits the recovery of damages from the owners of buildings wherein liquor is sold, received the Governor's signature April 30.
  • A great fire occurred in the city of Orenburg on the Ural river, April 26 and 27. Loss reported enormous. More than half the population without food and shelter. A violent storm prevailed at the time of the fire.
  • For several days experts under the direction of the Grand Jury, have been examining the books of the Treasurer of San Francisco. A defalcation was discovered, and the Deputy Treasurer committed suicide April 28.
  • The rumors that the Porte has obtained relief from its most pressing pecuniary embarrassment by raising a loan in London on the surplus revenue of Cyprus, is unfounded. All its financial projects are still unfruitful.
  • A great deal has been done to protect the whites from the depredation of Indians. The Administration is now taking steps to protect the Indians on reservations from the depredations of whites. This will no doubt save much in war expenses.
  • Doctor Wiede, of Zurich, editor of the Neue Gesellschaft was arrested in Milan on accusation of engaging in a plot to assassinate the Queen of England and the King and Queen of Italy. His friends declare that he is incapable of such a design.
  • The London Standard’s Rome special says that it is stated from the Vatican that the Pope has asked the foreign Governments whether he could rely upon their protection, in event of an attack upon the Vatican by the Republicans. Some Powers have replied affirmatively.
  • The merchants of New York are said to be thoroughly alarmed at the threat of Congress to cut off the supplies of Government because of the President's recent vote. But capitalists are offering the Administration money with which to carry on the Government during the recess of Congress.
  • Dr. Stephen R. Harris died in the Napa Insane Asylum, April 27, aged 77. He was a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York; held an important post in that city; came to California in 1849, and successively held the offices of Mayor, Comptroller, and Coroner of San Francisco.
  • Szegedin seems to be doomed. A violent hurricane April 30 destroyed the works prepared for restoring the railway and filling breaches in the dams. Barges filled with building material and earth were mostly sunk. The storm caused extensive fresh breaches in the railway embankment, and the laborers are in great danger.