Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 22, 1909

— Tornadoes in the Mississippi Valley the last week have caused much damage to property, and the death of several persons.

— Prince von Buelow, chancellor of the German empire, retired from office July 14, and was succeeded by Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg.

— In a collision on Lake Superior, July 12, the steamer “John B. Cowie” sank in fifty fathoms of water, carrying with her fourteen of her crew.

— The War Department has sixty-five or more land stations in the United States and insular possessions, for use in connection with the work of the army and navy.

— The Standard Oil Company is about to begin the manufacture of petroleum butter. The new product is said to be of the same consistency as lacteal butter, but brown in color.

— In consequence of a strike of the employees of the Pressed Steel Car Company, near Pittsburg, Pa., July 14, serious rioting occurred, resulting in injury to over one hundred persons.

— Vodka is the strong drink on which Russians get drunk. On the bottles of vodka it has been the custom to have the Russian eagle. But at their last session the Douma ordered this removed, and passed a decree that the skull and crossbones should be on the bottles instead, and the word “poison” in large letters.

— Affairs in Persia are far from having reached a settlement. The revolutionists have gained decided advantage in battle with the royalists, and it seems that the shah will be forced to yield. It is only a question of a short time when the demands for a more liberal government must be granted in Persia, as they have been in Turkey.

— July 11, at Gouverneur, N. Y., in a heavy wind-and-rain storm thousands of small frogs fell, covering sidewalks to such an extent that walking was difficult. The rails on the Rome, Watertown, and Ogdensburg division of the New York Central Railroad for half a mile were covered and rendered so slippery that the speed of trains was materially lessened.

— Not every coin of ancient date is of value or interest, but a gold farthing which brought at auction, in London, on the first day of this month, eighty-three pounds, is of very great interest. It was coined at Carrickfergus, or Downpatrick, about 1185 A. D., by the governor of Ireland, under King Henry II. It has a representation of David playing a harp on one side, and on the other side St. Patrick driving the reptiles out of Ireland.

— The House, July 12, passed the Senate joint resolution providing for the submission to the States of a Constitutional amendment permitting Congress to levy an income tax. As soon as this resolution is signed by President Taft, as it undoubtedly will be signed, since the President recommended such a step to Congress, it will rest with the legislatures of the various States to say whether there shall be an income tax amendment to the Constitution. The vote in the House was decidedly in favor of the resolution, 317 to 14.

— John Goode, the last surviving member of the Confederate Congress, died at Norfolk, Va., July 14, at the age of eighty years.

— Looking back over its seventy-three years of existence, the British Temperance League estimates that the number of abstainers in Great Britain has grown from the almost infinitesimal figure of 130,000 in 1835 to 8,000,000 in 1908.

— The ridiculous farce of holding a funeral for a pet cat was recently enacted in Philadelphia. Fully one thousand persons attended the funeral. The body was embalmed, placed in a rich casket, and buried in due form. Another feline pet was recently purchased by a Chicago woman for $525.

— A novel feature of church music has been introduced into the services of a Cincinnati church. Some thirty-five canary birds are placed in cages hung about the auditorium. These join with the choir in the music rendered. The experiment is said to be very satisfactory, and the effect very pleasing.

— A historic pageant, representing the growth of science and literature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, brought to a close, July 11, Geneva’s ten-day celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. The festival was the whole world’s, for the nations of the world, through their representatives, united in according homage to the memory of the great thinker and reformer.

— A chair of aviation at the University of Paris has been established upon a fund of $140,000; and in the same university there is the foundation of a department of technical aeronautics, with an endowment of $100,000. It was in that city, and in the year 1783, that the Montgolfiers, by making a successful ascent, attracted the attention of the world to air travel. In addition to this, an annual gift of $3,000 will be received. This was by a Frenchman, but the gift of $140,000 was made by Basil Zakaroff, a Greek resident of Paris.

— To-day there are nine whole States which have outlawed the liquor traffic from their respective borders, with a total population of 16,301,000, and a total area of 477,459 square miles, the last six of which have been added within the last three years. In addition to these nine prohibition States, there are to-day 375 cities under prohibitory law, with a population ranging from 5,000 up to 175,000 each, while two thirds of all the rural or country districts of the remaining States have excluded the saloon under local prohibition privilege.

— As a result of the earnest and self-sacrificing efforts of eminent German scientists who have sounded wide the alarm at the rising tide of intemperance in Germany, a powerful total abstinence movement is developing by leaps and bounds. In 1903, according to the best authorities in Germany, there were 35,000 members of the various temperance societies in Germany. This membership had increased to 55,000 in 1905, and according to the Internationale Monatsschrift, December, 1908, there were 86,000 members in these same organizations at that date. In addition to this, there are thousands of boys and girls enlisted in juvenile temperance societies.