Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 19, 1907

— Slight earthquake shocks have been reported within the past week from Cuba, and from St. Louis, Mo. No damage is reported in either case.

— Lieutenant-General Stoessel and other army officers of high rank are undergoing trial by court martial at St. Petersburg, charged with needlessly surrendering Port Arthur to the Japanese in the late war.

— The German ministry of marine has prepared for submission to the Reichstag detailed estimates of the probable cost of the navy for the next ten years. The proposed outlay reaches the enormous sum of $1,043,000,000.

— In a fog that overhung New York harbor, December 10, a ferry-boat bearing 500 passengers was rammed by a sound steamer. Two persons were thrown overboard by the impact, but both were rescued. Many of the passengers of the ferry were transferred to the steamer.

— The wireless telegraph station at Kief, Russia, succeeded in picking up messages started from the station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. The distance between the places mentioned is about 3,750 miles. Stray messages have previously been picked up at a distance of 2,500 miles from their point of origin.

— A plot to assassinate King Carlos of Portugal, when he should attend the theater in Lisbon, December 18, has been frustrated. In general, the situation is more reassuring, and the government in its official organ has promised to terminate the dictatorship and hold the elections in April, if the present political calm is maintained.

— The bubonic plague infection is reported to be still quite generally distributed in San Francisco, although the percentage of mortality is not so high as at first reports. There were 112 cases up to December 7, with sixty-seven deaths. Statistics show that in India from April last to October there were 533,557 cases of plague, and 474,914 deaths therefrom.

— A strike has been on for some time at Goldfield, Nev. The governor appealed for federal troops, which have been sent to the scene with instructions that they are not to take the side of either miners or employees. The President has dispatched to Goldfield the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, the Commissioner of Labor, and the Commissioner of Corporations, to learn the exact conditions existing there.

— After a short period of illness, Oscar II, king of Sweden, died the morning of December 8, aged nearly seventy-nine years. Four hours later the Crown Prince took the oath of office, and now rules as Gustaf V. King Oscar was a man of many accomplishments, being considered the most scholarly of present-day rulers. He was a lover of peace and justice, for which reason he had frequently been called upon to act as arbiter of international questions. King Oscar was greatly loved by his subjects, who gave many indications of genuine sorrow over his death.

— It is reported that about 75,000 union railroad men, on sixty-five different railroad lines east of the Mississippi River and including eastern Canada, are preparing for a strike in January, unless wages are advanced and uniform working rules adopted.

— Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria on December 2 celebrated the beginning of the sixtieth year of his reign. In accordance with his expressed wish, this was done with the utmost simplicity. To prevent the fatigue of receiving congratulatory deputations, the diplomatic representatives of the various countries signed a congratulatory register.

— At the instigation of the Italian ambassador, the Secret Service Department investigated the cases of twelve Italian laborers who were brought from Baltimore, Md., to Bristol, Va., to work on a railway, under alleged false pretenses. As a result of the investigation the federal grand jury has brought indictments for peonage against the representative of a New York employment agency and a police justice of Bristol.

— A treaty providing for the annexation of the Kongo Independent State to Belgium is now before the Belgian Chamber of Deputies. The richest section of the Kongo, known as the crown domain, which has generally been expected to remain independent and be controlled by King Leopold, will instead pass to Belgium and be controlled by Belgian laws; and instead of being exploited for private revenue by a stock company, whose largest holder is the king, the treaty provides for the annual payment of $89,000 to the family of the king, and $145,000 for the maintenance of museums and palaces in Belgium. The present attitude of the king has produced a favorable impression.

— At the beginning of the trial on charges of high treason preferred against thirty-seven members of the second Douma and seventeen soldiers and civilians, 50,000 employees of the mills in St. Petersburg walked out, December 5, on a one day's strike as a mark of sympathy. A like action was taken by the students and workmen of Moscow. About two weeks ago 203 of the students of the university at Kief were banished, and now 458 more of the students, including thirteen women, are under arrest on charge of sedition. At a meeting they had passed a resolution to the effect that the establishment of a republican form of government was the solution of the revolutionary difficulties that afflict the country.

— Some months since organized tobacco growers of some sections in the South committed depredations by raiding the homes of planters who would not join the organization, destroying their crop of tobacco, and often severely beating the owners. Similar trouble has broken out again in Kentucky. Early in the morning of December 7 the “night riders” (as they are now termed), 500 strong, descended upon Hopkinsville, wounding two men, terrifying citizens, and doing $200,000 damage to property. Two members of the mob were wounded fatally by a pursuing posse, and died. Possibly it was revenge for this that caused the night riders to form again, and the governor has ordered out a company of the National Guard.