News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 17, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Twenty-four persons were killed in automobile accidents occurring in various parts of the country on October 5, 6.

— With 50,000 persons watching him at the interstate fair-grounds near Trenton, N. J., Charles F. Walsh, while making a spiral descent in a Curtis biplane, fell to instant death on October 3. Practically every bone in his body was broken, and his face and body were badly cut. He fell 2,000 feet. His machine was a complete wreck.

— Archery is showing signs of revival as a sport. The National Archery Association at its tournament a few weeks ago in Boston had the largest attendance it has had for many years. Several American archers are said to hold records that have not for fifty years been equaled in England, the original home of the sport.

— According to reports, the Madero administration is torn with internal dissension and confronted with revolution in the north and south. The army is both inefficient and out of sympathy with Madero. If a real leader should appear, it is feared the army would rebel tomorrow. The government is out of money, the $3,000,000 pesos on hand being already pledged and reserved for stated purposes. There is danger at any moment of a breach between Madero and the congress. If the government should be outvoted, the administration would fall, for public sentiment is overwhelmingly on the side of the legislative body.

— The long-talked-of peace treaty between Italy and Turkey was signed at Ouchy, Switzerland, on October 3.

— A schooner nearly a hundred years old, the “Hiram,” built in Biddeford, Maine, in 1819, is to make the voyage around Cape Horn to San Francisco for the Panama-Pacific Exposition. With one exception, this is the oldest vessel of American registry now afloat. She has been in active service ever since she was launched.

— Threats to sacrifice European lives at Foochow, China, have been uttered by General Pung unless his demands for 450,000 taels (about $315,000) from the authorities are acceded to. The mutinous troops with General Pung number from 10,000 to 20,000 men. A force of 5,000 government troops is marching from Nanking to meet the rebels. The missionaries have been recalled from the Hinghwa district, to the north of Amoy, where serious disorder has existed for some time.

— All the Spanish reservists who have left active service during the last six years were summoned to rejoin the colors October 3, and 60,000 men who ordinarily would not have been called to join their regiments until March next also were ordered to report for duty. The decree mobilizing this vast army is regarded as showing that the government considers the railroad strike serious. Premier Canalejas asserts that the railroad men have virtually declared a social war. He says their demands are impossible of fulfilment, and that an early settlement of the strike is also impossible.

— Yielding to the demands of conservationists that coal lands hereafter be leased by the government to private concerns instead of allotted or sold, the Interior Department announced that the plan would be tried. As a result, Van H. Manning, assistant director of the Bureau of Mines, departed for Wyoming, where he will complete the details of leasing 2,480 acres of government coal lands in that State to a local corporation. The leasing experiment will be carefully watched, and, if successful, probably will mark a revolution in the policy of the government in dealing with the public lands.

— The writing of organized labor’s history was attended by scenes of violence at Lawrence, Mass., on September 30, when, for the first time in this country a “demonstration” strike against the imprisonment of labor leaders took place. After hand-to-hand clashes between rioters and police, lasting all day, the demonstration was declared off by the Industrial Workers of the World. The strike was called for twenty-four hours, in protest against the imprisonment of Joseph J. Ettor, Arturo Giovannitti, and Joseph Caruso, whose trial in connection with the death of Anna Lopizzo during the textile strike last winter has just opened. Seven thousand of the 25,000 operatives in the cotton- and woolen-mills obeyed the call, forcing out 5,000 others, either through intimidation or lack of work because of closing down of departments. Then at a mass-meeting the workers were told to go back to work and be ready to come out again at the call of the Industrial Workers, if the leaders are not satisfied with the progress of the trial.

— Icebergs have been reported far south of the scene of the “Titanic” wreck, and the Atlantic track for vessels has been altered accordingly.

— The earliest use of the slot-machine, it is said, was in the Egyptian temples. They were then used to enable the worshiper to sprinkle himself with holy water.

— The British War Office has decided to use no more monoplanes for military service. Four lieutenants were killed in one week. Army aviators think that the biplanes are safer, but they have preferred the monoplanes on account of their swiftness.

— Mesa and Delta Counties in western Colorado will, at the close of the season, an agricultural paper states, have shipped 5,000 car-loads of peaches from orchards embracing not more than 8,000 acres. A full-bearing orchard in those counties easily produces a car-load of peaches to an acre.

— The sun-bath is said to be so popular at present in Germany that in several cities one can buy a ticket for a sun-bath just as in America one buys a ticket for a bath in the surf. The sun-bath ticket entitles the holder to a room for disrobing, a bathing-suit, and a “place in the sun.”

— The Turkish government is reported as about to take measures for the establishment of a safe port, at a cost of 12,000,000 rupees, at Jaffa, Palestine, to enable tourists more easily to visit the Holy Land. There are times when for a week or more it is impossible to land at this port, owing to dangerous seas.

— The prayer-book of Queen Marie Antoinette which she used in prison, has been found. The best expert in France has examined the writing in the book, and says it is certainly that of the queen. These are the last words ever penned by her: “Tenth of October. May God have pity on me. My eyes have no more tears to weep for you, my dear children. Adieu, adieu. MARIE ANTOINETTE.”

— Only one officer who saw service in the civil war is, it is announced, left on the active list of the United States army, Col. John L. Clem, of the quartermaster’s department. Readers whose memory goes back to war times will remember him as “Johnny Clem, the drummer boy,” who became famous for refusing to surrender at Chickamauga. He killed the Confederate colonel who tried to capture him, and after the battle, was made a sergeant, though only twelve years old.