News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1916

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Manitoba had a referendum vote recently on a temperance act. It was an unlucky day for two hundred bars, forty-two wholesale liquor houses, and seven licensed clubs, all of which will close June 1.

— Twenty-one thousand Bibles and Testaments went down with the Japanese steamer “Ysaka Maru,” recently torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea. The books belonged to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and were consigned from London to various points in the East.

— A nation-wide movement was started recently in Washington, D. C., for the erection of a memorial in the national capital in memory of Clara Barton, famous as the “Angel of the Battle Field.” Miss Barton was the founder of the American branch of the Red Cross. Many of the notable men and women of the nation are leaders in the movement for the memorial.

— Experiments have been made in Europe to determine what color in a soldier’s uniform is the least conspicuous to an enemy. Of ten men, two were dressed in light gray uniforms, two in dark gray, two in green, two in dark blue, and two in scarlet. All were then ordered to march off, while a group of officers remained watching them. The first to disappear in the landscape was the light gray.

— The Chinese government recently signed an agreement permitting Russia to construct a railroad in Manchuria. This road will give Russia control in northern Manchuria, in compensation for the railway rights granted Japan in southern Manchuria. The new line is to run from Harbin, on the Siberian railroad, in a northerly direction across Manchuria to a point on the Russian frontier, a distance of more than 660 miles.

— China has abandoned the monarchical form of government, and is again a republic. The mandate creating this change, issued by Yuan Shi-Kai, states that the demand for a monarchy was not unanimous, and therefore he has ceased to be emperor, and resumes the presidency. Officials of the Chinese Republic Association, which has been financing the revolution, are pleased with the change. This association has a membership in the Americas of about 300,000.

— Congress now has before it the largest fortification bill ever reported to that body. It was presented to the House of Representatives as the first of four annual measures which provide for the expenditure of about $100,000,000 for increasing and modernizing the coast defenses of the country. The bill calls for $34,299,050 for this year, and will make possible armaments to defend harbors against the long-range guns of modern battleships, and otherwise strengthen the coast defenses.

— Probably the oldest stained-glass window still in existence is one in a church at Neuwiller, in Alsace, which represents St. Timothy, and which, though dating from the eleventh century, is still in good preservation. Other very ancient examples, which date from the twelfth century, are to be seen in the church of St. Denis, near Paris.

— A side effect of the war that interests every one of us is the increased price of leather, and so of shoes, due to the increasing demand for leather and the diminishing supply. The latest census reports show that the number of cattle has decreased twenty per cent in the last ten years, and the population has increased the same percentage. Shoes, therefore, are to be more expensive. It is said that the increase for the present will be about twenty per cent, but will likely be more by next fall.

— More than twenty prominent tobacco manufacturers of New York City and Brooklyn were arrested recently, and warrants were said to be out for many others, as a result of an investigation made by internal revenue collectors, who claim that the government has been defrauded of millions of dollars by the selling of cheap cigars and cigarettes without stamps, to consumers and dealers throughout the country for the past fifteen years. In a statement issued by the federal authorities in charge of the investigation, the losses to the government through these alleged illegal practices were described as “appalling.” “The proof so far obtained,” the statement says, “has resulted in evidence being secured to date warranting the seizure of about 200 factories in New York and elsewhere.”