Items of General News

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 26, 1912

Items of General News

— Along two blocks on Clark Street, Chicago, eight persons have been killed or seriously maimed by speeding automobiles within the last ten months.

— The papers of December 13 reported a severe blizzard raging in northern New York. Snow had been falling for fifteen hours, and was seventeen inches deep.

— Six persons were killed and five are missing as the result of a collision between a street-car and a Lake Shore and Michigan Southern coal train, at Ashtabula, Ohio, on the night of December 16.

— Dr. Carl Alsberg, of New York, a chemical biologist in the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department of Agriculture, will be appointed to succeed Dr. Harvey W. Wiley as chief of the Bureau of Chemistry.

— Six thousand Italians in Philadelphia celebrated Thanksgiving day together. They gave a sufficient amount of money to buy a war aeroplane of the finest model. This is to be presented on Christmas to King Victor Emmanuel.

— Twelve hundred striking miners employed by the Pennsylvania Coal Company at Pittston returned to work last week after officials of the company threatened to prefer charges against officials of the union before the conciliation board for ordering the strike.

— Hon. Whitelaw Reid, United States ambassador to Great Britain, died at his home in London on Dec. 15, 1912. A British battle-ship will bring the body to America for burial. President Taft has stated that he will leave the appointment of a successor to President-elect Wilson.

— Gov. George W. Donaghey of Arkansas has just pardoned three hundred sixteen State, and forty-four county, convicts. His action was a protest against the system of leasing convicts, now in vogue in Arkansas. As a result of the pardon three State convict camps will be abolished.

— There was a net decrease of five officers, and a net increase of 4,455 enlisted men, in the authorized strength of the regular army last year. The annual report of Brig.-Gen. George Andrews, adjutant-general of the army, made public last week, shows that the present strength of the army is 4,650 officers, and 87,965 men. There are 1,017 officers on the retired list.

— On December 17 William J. Flynn, chief of the New York office of the United States Secret Service, was appointed chief of the Federal Secret Service by Secretary of Treasury MacVeagh, succeeding John E. Wilkie, who has been promoted to the post of supervising agent in charge of the customs sleuths.

— The United States Supreme Court has canceled, as violative of the Sherman antitrust law, the contracts by which railroad-owned coal companies in the Pennsylvania anthracite fields had purchased the output for all time of “independent” mines. Attorney-General Wickersham expresses the belief that the decision “will so completely destroy the combination which now controls the price of anthracite that it must result in a distinct measure of relief to the public.”

— A disastrous fire, following the explosion of two hundred pounds of paraffin being landed at Naples, occurred in the harbor of that city on the night of December 13. The damage is placed approximately at $400,000. The number of small craft burned and sunk is estimated at from fifty to sixty, a majority of them being small boats owned by poor fishermen, whom the disaster ruined. Seeing their boats burning, they attempted to throw themselves into the water. The bay was transformed for an area of 150 square yards into a lake of fire. The flames, leaping high in the air from the water, afforded a terrible spectacle.

— The most desperate naval battle of the Balkan war was reported to be in progress on December 17, just outside the Dardanelles, between the Greek and Turkish gunboats. It is believed that during the engagement the Greeks lost one cruiser and two destroyers, and the Turks one destroyer and one cruiser. The war-clouds, which were believed to have permanently lifted when the armistice was signed, again hang over European Turkey. Failure threatens the peace negotiations now going on in London, the Turkish delegates having threatened to walk out of the conference as a protest against participation in the affair by the Greek delegates when Greece is still waging war against Turkey on land and sea.

— The reports in a recent issue of the Shanghai Times indicate a rapid development of industrial enterprises in China. This advancement is evidenced to by the following improvements: A new cotton factory with 20,592 spindles opened at Shanghai; electric lighting installations at Changsha, Hangchow, and Foochow; a brick factory at Canton, with up-to-date British machinery, capable of turning out 40,000 bricks a day; a cement plant at Tongshan, equipped with motor plant and new machinery, having a capacity of 500,000 barrels a year; two new flour-mills at Chungking and Yunanfu; a leather factory and tannery at Canton; a match factory at Hangchow; a large private printing establishment with foreign machinery started at Changsha; a new paper-mill at Hankow; a rice-hulling mill at Changsha. And this list is by no means a catalogue of Chinese manufactures, nor even of factories established within recent months; but it indicates an important change in conditions.