News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 15, 1910

News and Miscellany

—The republic of Mexico has just been celebrating the centennial of its independence.

—The Panama Canal Board calls for $14,000,000 for the fortification of the canal, and it is supposed that appropriations for the purpose will be made in the next Congress.

—One evidence of the rapid expansion of Japan’s commercial activities is found in the establishment of a direct steamer service between that country and Chile, South America.

—During the first quarter of 1910, there were 1,100 persons killed on the railways in this country, and 21,322 persons were injured. It is a heavy increase over the corresponding quarter of last year.

—Although all the steamship companies plying between Europe and America are building and launching new ships, the tide of travel is such that at the present time many Americans visiting Europe were unable to secure the homeward passage during the early part of September. The rapid development in the steamship lines in all the world proclaims this indeed the age of running to and fro.

—According to German statisticians, the Jewish population in all the world now numbers just over eleven and one-half millions. Nearly nine millions of these are resident in Europe, Russia having over five millions.

—The chronic state of uneasiness continues in the Near East. Quantities of arms and ammunition are being shipped to Athens and Salonica, it is said, notwithstanding the effort of the powers to relieve the tension between Greeks and Turks.

—The increase of motor-driven vehicles in London has within six years reduced the number of horses in that city from 450,000 to 110,000. In Paris the number of horses employed in the city has been reduced from 128,000 to 92,000.

—It seems now accepted as a settled fact that the military nations are going in for competition in the development of the air-ship and dirigible balloon for military purposes. Thus on land and sea and in the air the forces for Armageddon are gathering.

—The ancient Bible lands are in the full grip of modern development. New railway projects are being pushed in Asia Minor, and already railway and telephonic communication connect Constantinople and Mecca. The latest development is a serious proposition to build an electric street-car system in Jerusalem.

—No sooner is it announced that a new and superior style of war-ship is being built in England, to be driven by gas motors, than a German paper announces that the same style of battle-ship is being constructed in Germany. The new type, it is claimed, will not only outfight the largest existing battle-ships, but is to be made invulnerable to attack by air-ship.

—According to the recent report of the Census Office, New York City has 1,838,482 church communicants, of whom seventy-six per cent are Roman Catholics. Of Chicago’s 833,441 communicants, sixty-eight per cent are Catholics. The Washington Post remarks, “It is a rather curious fact that in New England, which was settled by the Puritans, the Catholics are the strongest denomination.”

—According to Professor Kambe, of Japan, the struggle by which that country has taken its place so suddenly among the great powers has laid upon it heavy burdens. While Japan’s national wealth is the smallest of all the great powers, she is the most heavily burdened with debt, and next to Italy, is the most heavily taxed. According to his figures, the Japanese wage-earner must pay a little over a tithe of his income in taxes to the government.

—Leading families in Persia are sending numbers of their young people to America to study Western educational and industrial methods, in order to introduce desired reforms in Persia. One fortunate feature of the revolution in Persia was that the Moslem clergy arrayed themselves against everything savoring of Western culture, and have lost thus, it is said, their prestige with the progressive people. This ought to open more widely the door of access to the Christian missionary.