News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 2, 1915

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— On July 26 the attendance at the Panama Pacific Exposition passed the 9,000,000 mark.

— Postmaster-General Burleson has issued an order that the use of bicycles in the rural delivery mail service be prohibited after Jan. 1, 1916. His reasons are that such methods of transportation are too limited in their capacity, and do not afford necessary protection for the mails in bad weather.

— Some expert at figures has estimated that the 260,000,000 cubic yards of material handled in building the Panama Canal would make a solid wall nine feet high and six feet thick around the whole earth at the equator.

— The capture of Warsaw by the Germans, officially announced August 5, ended more than a century of Russian domination of the Polish capital, a city of about 800,000 people and sometimes referred to as the Paris of Russia.

— Secretary of the Interior Lane recently called attention to the fact that the United States is paying out $105,000,000 a year pensions to ex-soldiers and ex-sailors, while our navy is costing us $147,000,000 a year and our regular army $125,000,000.

— On August 14 a large portion of the north side of Kingston, Jamaica, was washed away by heavy seas and tidal waves. Hundreds of persons were rendered homeless, and houses and wharves demolished. Banana plantations suffered greatly. Fifteen persons are known to have been killed.

— There are more than 18,000 regularly established public libraries in the United States, containing over 75,000,000 volumes. The increase of 20,000,000 volumes since 1908 indicates the scope of the reading habit of the country. These figures were compiled by the United States Bureau of Education.

— After more than 400 years, Spain has officially declared her doors open to the Jews of all nations. Announcement has just been made to the Jews of the United States by Senor Juan Riano, Spanish ambassador to this country, that they will be welcomed to full citizenship in Spain, with all bars of inequality and disfranchisement removed.

— Vesuvius, Mt. Etna, and Stromboli, three of the world's greatest volcanoes, have suddenly become active, and are belching forth great clouds of steam and smoke. Lava is pouring down the eastern slope of Mt. Etna from two new craters, threatening the destruction of Sicilian villages. The whole population of Naples and of Messina and other Sicilian cities is in a state of terror.

— New York City is working out a plan for providing religious instruction for the children in the public schools. Last year one school in the Bronx, with 1,600 children, dismissed its pupils for eighty minutes three times each week, allowing them to go to the churches of their choice for religious instruction for that period. The same plan will be tried in one school in each of the three boroughs—Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx—this year.

— By about 15,000 majority the Canadian province of Alberta voted recently that the sale of liquor shall be prohibited throughout that domain after July 1, 1916. According to the direct legislation act of Alberta, the next legislature must put the law on the statute books without substantial alteration. The new act abolishes 320 hotel, club, and wholesale licenses throughout Alberta. Under the law all liquors handled for medicinal, scientific, and sacramental purposes after July 1 will be handled by dispensaries under control of the government.

— The government henceforth will transport all its money and securities by mail, relieving the express companies of $500,000 annual income.

— During the year ending last June 30 not a passenger out of 180,000,000 carried was killed in a train accident on the entire Pennsylvania Railroad system.

— Three bushels of jewels, purses, and other small pieces of personal property which belonged to victims of the “Eastland” disaster were recovered when the ship, just three weeks after the catastrophe, was restored to even keel, on August 14. The property was found on the upper decks, which were the first available to search. Exploration of the hull will follow. No bodies were found in the hold.

— Plans have been submitted to the Ontario government involving the expenditure of $10,000,000 on the development of 100,000 additional horsepower, with provision for the eventual generation of 600,000 horsepower, on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Whether this will affect the natural beauty of the falls is another question. On the American side so much has been deviated from the cataract that widespread protest has been made against the further harnessing of Niagara.

— Carrying with it almost three acres of hard clay, the immense power plant of the Knickerbocker Cement Company, near Hudson, N. Y., recently was almost swallowed in what is supposed to be a bed of quicksand, killing five men and injuring several others. Just before the change of the laboring shift the workmen felt a rumbling under their feet, then came a cloud of dust. Almost instantly the immense plant disappeared from sight, carrying with it 40,000 tons of trap rock stored for winter use, the weight of which undoubtedly served to cause the disaster. The plant, built four years ago at a cost of $250,000, was situated on an almost level piece of land one mile from Hudson; it employed nearly 600 men.