p. 13 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 6, 1910

Current Mention

—The annual “tank fight”—an institution of Purdue University, La Fayette, Ind.—took place on the evening of September 24. As a result, one young man is dead, and 20 others are more or less seriously injured.

—Not a day passes that the papers do not record an increasing number killed and wounded in automobile accidents. Recently seven persons met their death in this way in one day, among them a prominent surgeon of Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife and two young children.

—During the recent target practise of the Atlantic Ocean battle-ship fleet, the gunners demonstrated their ability to hit a ship at a distance of six miles, or soon after it made its appearance on the horizon. Targets that looked “like pin points on the horizon” were easily hit at a distance of 10,000 yards.

—Two Englishmen were recently arrested as spies on Borkum, the western extremity of the German Friesian Islands. This is taken as an indication that the kaiser is fortifying this bit of land, six miles long and two wide, as a military base. It is said that, thus fortified, it will become as strategic a point to Helgoland—“the Gibraltar of the North Sea”—as is Malta to Gibraltar.

—Disobedience of orders and “speeding” caused a serious collision on an interurban railway near Tipton, Ind., September 24, and cost the lives of six persons, the serious injury of six others, and severe hurts to several more. This is the second accident of the kind to occur in Indiana in three days. On September 21 two cars running at a high rate of speed collided on a curve, near Fort Wayne, resulting in the death of 41 persons and the injury of 20 others.

—Practically all the cadets at West Point have been under arrest the past week for administering what is known as “silence” to an instructor. This is a grave offense in military discipline, and is the first case that has occurred at West Point for ten years.

—It is said that the new station of the Pennsylvania Railroad just opened in New York City is the largest building ever constructed at one time in the history of the world. It covers an area of twenty-eight acres, of which eight acres are taken up by the building itself, the rest being allotted to the railroad yards.

—The beginning of the new school year brings even more than the usual number of reports of injuries to students by the foolish practises accompanying the initiation of members into school societies. Ten students of a Pennsylvania high school had their faces disfigured for life on joining a debating society. We are thankful our own schools are pervaded by a different spirit.

—Ten indictments were recently found against ten of the most prominent meat packers in the country, including J. Ogden Armour, L. F. Swift, and others. The indictments charge “conspiracy,” “monopoly,” and “combination in restraint of trade.” Satisfaction is widely expressed that these indictments are found against individuals instead of against corporations, as is the usual course.

—In spite of the utmost vigilance the Asiatic cholera continues to spread. Cases are reported from Rome, Naples, and other points in Italy. A hundred thousand persons of the better classes, left Naples during the last week in September. In Budapest the scourge is increasing. Since the beginning of the plague, which has raged continuously in Russia for three years, more than 78,000 persons have died from the disease.

—The “Harvest Queen,” an old-fashioned sailing-ship, bound from Windsor, Canada, to Buenos Aires, became disabled, and drifted out of her course. When 1,000 miles south of the Azores, and on the edge of the Sargasso Sea, her distress signals were read by an Italian steamer, and immediately a wireless call for help was sent out. The “Koenigen Luise” received the signal at two o’clock in the morning of September 24, and made all haste to go to the rescue of the sinking ship, arriving in time to save the lives of all on board.

—Under the auspices of the Philadelphia County Sunday-School Association, more than 50,000 children, pupils of the Sunday-schools of Philadelphia, with their teachers and pastors, marched through the streets of that city on September 24. According to the committee having the matter in charge, this march, and the service following it, were “for the exaltation of Christ before the unchurched world; the exaltation of Christian character in the individual by courageous assertion of religious principles before one’s neighbors; and to show the fraternity of feeling between the evangelical churches of the city.” Thus are fostered in the minds of these children the idea of “church federation” and a tendency to supplement outward parade for a work of inward grace.

—It is said that Collector Loeb, of New York, in one year has collected over two and a quarter million dollars from would-be smugglers in the way of fines and duty payments.

—September 19 Captain Klaus Larsen made a successful trip in his motor boat from the foot of the cataract of Niagara through the Whirlpool Rapids—a distance of 4½ miles. He was badly battered, but announced his intention of making the trip again.

—The regard for relics of the Pope has led to the undoing of one of his personal attendants. It was found that every time the Pope’s hair was cut, the attendant gathered the locks, and was making a profitable business of selling them among the faithful.

—The Moabit district of Berlin was last week the scene of frequent riots between the strikers and their sympathizers and the police. September 28 the police commissioner issued the order, “Suppress disturbances without mercy.” The instruction was obeyed literally, the police sabering right and left whenever a group gathered.

—A steamship on the Atlantic picked up a boat-load of men who had escaped from a burning freight steamer. These men reported another boat-load of sixteen men somewhere on the sea. The captain immediately sent out the news by wireless, and by means of the wireless a search was continued about the North Atlantic until one of the liners picked up the missing crew.