News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 28, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— A recent invention is the bulletless gun. It shoots a gas which temporarily blinds and chokes the victim. The gun, which resembles a double-action revolver, holds five cartridges. The weapon has been adopted for use in the United States Secret Service.

— An ingenious housekeeper tells an exchange that an easy way to knead dough is to run it through a meat-chopper, with which nearly all households are supplied. “If a stiff biscuit dough is run through this three or four times,” she says, “it is well worked.”

— On November 16, Pres.-elect Woodrow Wilson sailed for Bermuda. He plans to spend a month on the island, and before leaving New York announced that an extra session of Congress would be called not later than April 15, for the consideration of tariff revision.

— Lee McClung, treasurer of the United States, resigned from the government service last week. His resignation was accepted by the President, to take effect upon the qualification of his successor. Carmi Thompson, of Ohio, now secretary to the President, will be appointed to the vacancy.

— The strike situation in West Virginia is still serious. Though martial law is in effect and several battalions of militia on duty at Cabin Creek, a condition bordering on anarchy is said to exist in the Kanawha strike zone. Hundreds of armed miners are in complete control of a number of isolated districts, recognizing no law except that of force.

— The Russian naval court has sentenced 17 sailors to death and 106 to imprisonment at hard labor for from four to eight years for instigating mutinies in the Russian fleet.

— A light metal shield, claimed to be capable of rendering infantry practically invulnerable against rifle bullets, is said to have been invented by a German engineer named Schaumann.

— Twenty-eight persons were injured, one fatally, in a wreck on the Frisco Railroad near Sinton, Tex., a few days ago, when an engine, baggage-car, smoker, and day-coach jumped the track.

— Jose Canalejas y Mendes, the prime minister of Spain, who has been regarded as one of the greatest statesmen of the present day, was shot and instantly killed in Madrid, November 12, by a young anarchist named Manuel Pardinas.

— Eighteen persons are dead, and twenty-eight injured, some seriously, as the result of a collision that occurred near Indianapolis, Ind., on November 14, between a freight- and a passenger-train on the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railroad.

— Several sailing vessels with refugees from various parts of the coast were wrecked in a great storm on Monday night of last week, says a Constantinople despatch to the Chronicle (London). One vessel foundered off Haidarpasha, on the Asiatic coast, with a loss of more than 200 lives. The few survivors tell terrible stories of hardships suffered before the wreck. Many died of hunger and thirst, and their bodies were thrown overboard.

— An understanding whereby a modus vivendi will be established between the United States and Russia to prevent a complete rupture of commercial relations on January 1 next, when the American abrogation of the commercial treaty of 1832 becomes effective, has been reached by Secretary of State Knox and Russian Ambassador Bakhmeteff. The exact details of the understanding have not been made public, but it is said that an adjustment has been made which will prove satisfactory to both countries.

— There are reported to be more than 1,000 cases of cholera daily in and around Constantinople, and the death-rate has reached fifty per cent. The authorities are powerless to cope with the situation. At Derkos Lake, the chief source of Constantinople’s water-supply, there was a guard of soldiers. Twelve of these died and fifteen others were stricken with cholera in one night. There is great fear that the whole watershed will be contaminated, involving Constantinople in the gravest danger.

— A heavy movement of Chinese troops is in progress toward Mongolia, which Russia is accused of having undertaken to seize. A delegation of Mongolian dignitaries, who came to Peking recently to repudiate the declaration of independence, issued some time ago at the Mongolian town of Urga, on the ground that its authors were in the pay of Russia, formally requested the assistance of China in expelling the Russian troops that have of late made their appearance on Mongolian territory near the border. It is believed that hostilities between Russia and China are imminent.

— It is reported that the Japanese government, foiled in its first attempt to procure a basis for naval operations on the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean by purchase of land for a coaling station on Magdalena Bay, Lower California, has been, for two months, busy with secret negotiations looking to the purchase of 500 acres of land on the shores of Manzanillo Harbor, the most important port of Mexico’s Pacific mainland coast.

— Affairs in Morocco still continue serious, although the party that is under siege in the city of Morocco has been relieved by a French force. This force has found the country in such a condition, however, that it is fearful of its own position, and reenforcements are now on the way to it. Morocco is far from an easy conquest now that the French have a free hand, and bids fair to become to France what Tripoli is to Italy.

— The following report comes from Kingston, Jamaica, under date of November 17: Although the terrific storm that has prevailed over the islands since last Friday has in a measure abated, rain continues to fall in torrents. Telegraph and telephone communication is completely disorganized. There has been considerable damage on the north side of the island, mainly to planters. The railroad companies are also heavy losers from numerous washouts.