Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 20, 1909

— The first formal session of the second National Peace Congress opened in Chicago on May 3.

— Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the pioneer missionary of the Presbyterians in Alaska, died at Asheville, N. C., on May 2.

— Dr. Amador, founder of the republic of Panama, and its first president, died at Panama, on May 2, at the age of seventy-five.

— The value of the peanut crop of the United States during the past year is stated by the Department of Agriculture to have been about twelve million dollars.

— With a view to stimulating interest in the navigation of the air, the Aeronautical Society of New York City has offered cash prizes amounting to $10,000 for distance and speed races at an aeronautical tournament on the Morris Park race-track in May. Twenty-three members of that society have aeroplanes in course of construction.

— In order that England shall not be behind other nations in the matter of aeronautics, the British government has organized a new department, which will be occupied entirely with the problems of aeronautics and the testing of flying-machines. The premier states that it is the purpose of the government to make this department the most complete of any in the world, putting England in the lead in aeronautics, as she now is in naval matters.

— An attempt was made to destroy by means of dynamite a bridge in process of construction at Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 9, at a time when it was to be inspected by fifty prominent men of that city. The explosion was timed for the hour of inspection, but the inspectors were delayed, and by the delay their lives were saved. The bridge was being built by non-union labor, and the plot to destroy the bridge and the lives of the inspectors is laid at the door of the union.

— The former sultan of Turkey has finally yielded up the keys to his treasure in the Yildiz Kiosk, at Constantinople, and has also arranged for the transference of his funds, invested abroad, to the present Turkish government. This means will be used in paying off the soldiers who helped in the overthrow of the former régime. The massacres of Armenians and Christians have ceased, and the indications are that the new government is rapidly gaining control of the situation.

— In spite of the repeated assurances from Central America that war was not contemplated by Central American rulers, a despatch from Honduras, dated April 26, stated that martial law was declared, and drafts had been made on every town for soldiers for the interior. The president of Honduras, according to this despatch, has informed the United States government that he will be unable to protect Americans, lacking funds, military equipment, and supplies. This is taken as an invitation to Washington to intervene.