p. 21 | News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 8, 1910

News and Miscellany

—A biplane carrying six men made a successful flight at Lille, France, on August 29.

—In Canton, China, the bubonic plague is still raging. Attempts to destroy the infested houses by fire have resulted in serious conflagrations, and have therefore been abandoned.

—During the week from July 24-30 there were 15,244 cases of cholera in Russia, especially in the southern mining districts, and 6,944 deaths. The scourge has also appeared in Berlin and in southwestern Italy. The authorities are taking every precaution to prevent a further spread of the disease.

—The longest telegraphic line, where instantaneous communication can be maintained, is the one connecting London, England, with Calcutta and Bombay, India, a distance of 5,342 miles. And by turning a switch in one of these cities of India, London can communicate directly with Rangoon, Burma, a distance of 7,970 miles.

—At a recent function in Philadelphia a society leader wore a $200,000 necklace of matched pearls, said to be the most beautiful ever seen in this country. Rumor that the pearls would be worn got abroad, and the other matrons brought their jewels from the safety-deposit vaults, where they are usually kept, to wear on the occasion. The value of the gems worn at the dance given is estimated at more than $50,000,000.

—It would seem as if the extravagance of ancient Rome and the wanton luxury of France before the Revolution were rapidly finding a parallel in the acts of the overrich in this age. This was illustrated once more by a prominent San Francisco lawyer and lumber merchant, who, on August 9, arrived in New York from Paris, with his wife and a prize bull-dog. Being informed that the dog could not be carried in the state-room engaged for the trip across the continent, but must be sent in the baggage-car or by express, the lawyer immediately ordered a private car, at an expense of $2,000. “What do I care for $2,000 when the comfort of this little beauty is concerned?” he said.

—A cake of ice at 32° F. is ordinarily considered to be a rather cold substance, but it is as much hotter than liquid air as the oven in which bread is baked is hotter than the ice. A teakettle partly filled with liquid air and placed on a cake of ice receives so much heat from the ice that the liquid air soon boils vigorously, and the boiling can be made more violent by adding a few lumps of ice. If the normal temperature of the earth were at the freezing-point of air, and we could obtain a block of ice such as is distributed by the iceman of to-day, such ice could be used as fuel, and would be put into the furnaces instead of coal.—Popular Mechanics.

—Hugo Lilienthal, a horticulturist of San Francisco, and president and organizer of the juvenile societies of the Bay cities for the promotion of home gardening, has announced the discovery of an edible fruit from the climbing rose. According to the horticulturist, who showed specimens of the fruit from the rose, he has been experimenting with the plant for several months, and by cross-grafting has succeeded in obtaining from it a delicious fruit. He says that the fruit ripens after the flower withers away, similar to the ordinary fruit blossom, and that the rose fruit, colored like the plum, is of economic value. The fruit, he says, is best adapted for dessert, as it has a fine flavor like the pineapple, but it may also be cooked like a vegetable.

—Unlike other navies, the British fleet has no fixed establishment. Its strength is based upon the interpretation by the government of the two-power standard; in other words, it is laid down that the fleet must be equal to the next two greatest naval powers, with a margin of ten per cent over for emergency. This standard applies only to battle-ships, and the admiralty has consistently held that in cruisers and torpedo craft, owing to the position held by the British merchant marine, the margin of safety must be even higher. It consequently follows that, as the strength of continental navies is augmented, so the pressure of public opinion upon the British government results in an expansion of the British naval forces.—A. C. Hurd, in Cassier’s Magazine.

—Committees of investigation are being appointed in various large cities to study the baffling new disease which has been called infantile paralysis, though it has been found to attack adults. The disease is seldom fatal, but is not the less to be feared, since it results in permanently crippling and deforming its victims. It is thought to be a germ disease, and to be both infectious and contagious. “It is one of the strange things about disease,” says the Washington Times, speaking on the subject of the new malady, “that as fast as science conquers one form of it, another comes along to take its place. Seemingly, infantile paralysis is a recent development. Yellow fever, smallpox, and some of the other ancient ills are rapidly yielding before the onslaughts of modern medicine and sanitation. But as they become less to be feared, there rise up such maladies as pellagra and infantile paralysis, and others that might be enumerated. It would seem that the ills that flesh is heir to change, but are not inclined to diminish, in spite of the advance in scientific knowledge.”