Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 7, 1910

— On June 26 General Porfirio Diaz was again re-elected president of the republic of Mexico, which position he has held since 1877. He will reach the age of 80 years on September 15.

— Harry Burns Hutchins has been elected president of the University of Michigan, to succeed Dr. James B. Angell. Mr. Hutchins has been dean of the law department since 1895.

— The youngest of the surviving soldiers of the Civil War are now nearing 70 years of age. Since Memorial day, 1909, more than 50,000 of the old soldiers have died. In recent years the average number of deaths has been 3,000 a month, but this number is rapidly increasing.

— Imitation furs are now produced in some quantity, and it is hoped that the process can soon be so perfected that the imitation will equal, if not rival, the natural fur in color, gloss, and pliability, besides being much cheaper. Mohair and other long-staple wools are used in the process of manufacture.

— William P. Pittman, the young American who was captured about June 8 by the Madriz forces, near Bluefields, Nicaragua, has been tried by court-martial, and found guilty of a conspiracy against the government. He will be sentenced to a long term in the government penitentiary at Managua.

— On the evening of June 26, during a performance in the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, a bomb was thrown from the gallery toward the orchestra seats. The bomb exploded in mid-air. Twenty persons were injured, 6 of them fatally. The orchestra immediately began to play the national air, thus quieting the spectators, and preventing a panic.

— The Zeppelin air-ship “Deutschland” was caught in a gale while making a trip on June 28, and to avoid a whirlwind rose to a height of 4,000 feet. After the storm had spent its force, it was found that one of the motors refused to work, and as considerable gas had been lost in the high altitude, the ship sank rapidly to the top of a dense forest, landing in the tree-tops about 30 feet from the ground. A rope ladder was thrown out, and all the passengers escaped without injury. The air-ship was wrecked.

— The balance-sheets of the United States Treasury for the fiscal year ending June 30 showed a surplus in ordinary receipts over expenditures of $9,402,432. The large increase is due to larger receipts from customs duties, internal revenue taxes, and the addition of the fund from the new corporation tax.

— Richard Parr, who discovered the secret spring in the scales on the docks of the American Sugar Refining Company, and who assisted the government in recovering more than $2,000,000, is to receive a reward of $100,000. Large sums were offered to Parr by agents of the company, and for months he was followed by detectives.

— At the conclusion of the cabinet meeting of Spain, June 24, it was given out by Premier Canalejas that the religious program decided upon by the government, and set forth in an imperial decree on June 11, would be carried out, ignoring the protests of the Vatican. The decree amends the constitution, and authorizes the edifices of non-Catholic religious societies to display their insignia for public worship.

— Dr. Alfred Leffingwell has issued a book on “American Meat,” which is said to be “very disquieting reading.” The book shows that the abuses held up to view by Upton Sinclair in “The Jungle” have not by any means ended. The accusation in the present volume is not especially of a lack of cleanliness in preparing meat for the market, but that much of the meat itself is diseased before the animals are slaughtered. Millions of hogs afflicted with trichinæ, it is asserted, are killed, made up into flitches, hams, sausages, etc., and shipped to all parts of the world, thus spreading disease and death.

— The finding of a fourteen-year-old boy in a condition of intoxication in an abandoned hack on a wharf in Washington, D. C., has led to an investigation of certain conditions relating to the selling or giving of alcoholic drinks to minors in this city. Evidence is accumulating to show that “the boys of Washington, especially in the slums and alleys, are debauched by liquor given to them by men. This practise is widespread. In the face of deliberate effort to corrupt boys of tender age, the laws against selling liquor to minors are futile. Scores of men in this city are said to take delight in fastening the craving for liquor on boys.”

— On June 28 what is known as the new royal oath bill passed its final reading in the House of Commons. The bill was introduced by Prime Minister Asquith, who expressed the hope that it would not become a subject of controversy, in which position he was seconded by Mr. Balfour, leader of the opposition. All phrases objectionable to the 12,000,000 Catholic subjects of King George V have been eliminated in the proposed declaration, which reads as follows: “I do solemnly and sincerely and in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful member of the Protestant Reformed Church, by law established in England, and I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure Protestant succession to the throne of my realm, uphold and maintain said enactments to the best of my power according to law.”