News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 7, 1915

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Gen. George W. Goethals, who had charge of the building of the Panama Canal and who has been since the canal was completed governor of the Panama Canal Zone, recently announced his resignation. He will retire on November 1. General Goethals is surrendering his office because he believes his work at Panama is done. The canal is operating satisfactorily at the present time. He has spent seven years in Panama.

— At Oxford, England, in the closing days of July, there passed away a man who had attained the first place among the lexicographers of the time, Sir James A. H. Murray. His age was 78 years. He was born at Denholm, a town on the Scotch borderland. Becoming a teacher, he developed a penchant for dialect, natural history, and antiquities, finally devoting himself to languages. In 1872 he began the work in which he has been engaged ever since and which he left uncompleted, the compilation of “The Oxford English Dictionary: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.” Nine large volumes have been published. It will be unrivaled anywhere as a thesaurus of philological learning. The work will be completed by those who had collaborated with Dr. Murray.

— New York State and its subdivisions, exclusive of the city of New York, owe $75 for every man, woman, and child. Including the city, the per capita debt is $125. The average debt for each acre exclusive of the city is $13.10. Inclusive of the city, the average debt per acre is $47.80.

— Nothing could more forcefully bring out the unsettling of established conditions of things by the war than the announcement that the pound sterling of England has gone down below par and that the American dollar has become the standard in the financial world. In fact, all money exchanges of Europe have gone down. This is due to the strain of the war and to the fact that American manufacturers have been pouring into the markets large amounts of foreign paper received in payment of big war contracts.

— Under the eyes of Lieutenant McIlwain, of the United States flying corps, and three members of the British royal flying corps, aeroplane records were broken at Buffalo, N. Y., on August 10, by the latest model of the Curtiss machine. The tests disclosed that the plane is capable of carrying two men and 900 pounds of explosive. With 1,200 pounds aboard, it sped at eighty-five miles an hour and broke the world's altitude record. The new machine is a 160-horse-power tractor.

— General attention has been drawn for some weeks to the work of Thomas Mott Osborne as warden of Sing Sing Prison. Mr. Osborne some time ago, as a member of the prison commission, had himself incarcerated at Sing Sing, that he might study conditions from the inside. He has been introducing new ideas in connection with the management of the institution since his appointment as warden, and it has been feared by some that he was breaking down the discipline of the place. Mr. Osborne's system, in a word, is an attempt to work out a restoration of character in the criminals who are confined at Sing Sing, by trying to awaken within them the best of which their nature is capable.