p. 55 | Secular News by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 13, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 7.

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Secular News

By Editor

—The University of Michigan has 1360 students.

—A bill has been introduced in Congress to reform the Gregorian Calendar.

—John Blair Scribner, head of the Scribner and Co., Publishing House died recently. He was quite a young man.

—Visalia and Santa Cruz report being "shaken up" by an earthquake January 4th. Also Watsonville the 5th.

—The rainfall in California Feb. 8 and 9 was timely and very welcome. It comes warmer than the preceding one.

—Ex-Secretary Hamilton Fish on being "interviewed," said General Grant is under-estimated in the United States.

—English statesmen say that England cannot make a Naval Station at Cyprus because of the prevalence of fever on that island.

—Some inquisitive visitors claim to have, captured a "material spirit" at the rooms of Mrs. Sawyer a medium in San Francisco.

—Michael Hall, in Sutro, Nev., made a bet that he would drink a quart of whisky in five minutes. He did it, but died in terrible agonies.

—In Providence the number of tramps seeking relief from the city has fallen off two-thirds since the overseers established a wood-yard to test their willingness to work.

—An examination into the affairs of the United States Navy show great mismanagement, and waste of funds by Ex-Secretary Robeson and some of his subordinates.

The ratio of laborers and mechanics out of employment in New York City has steadily decreased during the past few years, and their future prospects are very cheering.

—A cold-blooded unprovoked murder of four Indians recently took place in Mariposa Co., Cal., by seven whites, only two of whom have been arrested. The Indians were peaceful laboring men.

—Ten counties of Illinois have female school superintendents, and they are more efficient than their male predecessors, and no money is lost by either ignorance or dishonesty. A strong argument.

—Seven children of one family in Plainfield, Vt., died of diphtheria within two weeks. The disease is believed to have been taken from some clothes given them by a friend who had recently lost two children from diphtheria.

—The Mendocino Beacon says:—"Several tons of ice have been put up at Mark West Springs, Sonoma county, this winter. This is said to be the first time in the history of the county that putting up ice has been attempted."

—Turkey and Russia have at length concluded a definitive treaty of peace. It is not likely that the Turks will ever again be able to offer so formidable a resistance to their northern foes as in the recent war, unless materially aided by allies.

—Captain Boynton the great swimmer, recently swam from Oil City to Pittsburg. The weather was cold, with occasional snow storms and considerable floating ice in the river. He seems determined to demonstrate that life may be saved though vessels may be lost.

—The "cipher dispatches" have been investigated during the last week by the Congressional Committee. Were our politics anything but what they are, it would be humiliating to prominent men to come forward to testify to their own disgrace, as they have been compelled to do.

—The snowfalls throughout Switzerland just before Christmas were almost unprecedented. In Freiburg, it has snowed, says a local journal, as in "the year of the great snow," 1784. In Lausanne no such snow has been known since 1829. In the Rhone Valley all trains were stopped. In Geneva no fewer than 670 laborers were employed in clearing the streets and public places. The saloon steamship Helvetia, on the Lake of Zug, which carries so many tourists from all nations to the Rigi-Arth Mountain Railway in Summer, was sunk by the mere weight of the enormous mass of snow which fell upon it.