Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 27, 1908

— Slight earthquake shocks were reported February 19 at Calabria, Sicily, and the Azores. No damage was done.

— The Senate, on February 19, ratified the French arbitration treaty. Several similar treaties with other nations are now in course of negotiation, with good prospect of successful completion.

— An explosion of ten tons of dynamite in the packing-house of the Hercules Powder works at Pinole, Cal., February 20, killed every one of the twenty-eight men employed in the shop at the time.

— The American battle-ship fleet entered the port of Callao, Peru, the morning of February 20, amid the cheers of thousands massed on the shore to extend a welcome. A general holiday had been proclaimed in the port and at the capital.

— A thousand unemployed foreigners, bearing red banners in their march toward the city hall of Philadelphia to demand work from the mayor, precipitated a riot in that city, February 20. Before quiet was restored, several policemen were severely injured, and fourteen of the leaders were arrested.

— Fifty terrorists were arrested in different parts of St. Petersburg, Russia, February 20. Most of these persons were heavily armed, and in resisting arrest wounded ten policemen and killed another. An entire block in the vicinity of the palace of the grand duke, Nicholas, Nicholavitch, was surrounded by gendarmes, and the 600 apartments were searched. Large stores of explosives and arms were unearthed.

— The enactment of legislation prohibiting the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors is still a live issue in different States. On February 14 the Virginia House passed a bill which is a codification of all existing statutes, and means total prohibition in all towns of 500 inhabitants or less. It is to be hoped that the Senate will concur. On the same day the West Virginia Senate failed by a single vote to get the two-thirds majority required to pass the amendment to the constitution forbidding the manufacture or sale of intoxicants. Four days later an amendment to establish constitutional prohibition was defeated by two votes in the House of the Mississippi Legislature.

— The past week has witnessed further depredations by the “night riders” of Kentucky. The most serious trouble occurred at Eddyville, where at one o’clock on Sunday morning, February 16, 300 masked men terrorized the town. Ten men were taken from their homes to the edge of the town and mercilessly flogged. The riders then dashed away, threatening to return later. No tobacco was destroyed, and but few of the victims are active in opposing the tobacco pool. The county judge, who had in a recent speech denounced a raid, was awakened, and warned that his immunity in the future from similar punishment depended entirely upon the attitude he showed toward the Tobacco Growers’ Association. Only respect for his age had saved him this time.