Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 23, 1908

— The governor of the Austrian-Polish province of Galicia was assassinated by a Ruthenian student, April 12, while giving audience to a delegation of students.

— An unexpected freshet in Hankow, China, is reported to have destroyed 700 junks in the river, and caused the death of 2,000 persons by drowning. The waters caught the people unexpectedly at night.

— A government franchise bill has passed both houses of the Danish Rigsdag. By its provisions all taxpayers, both male and female, more than twenty-five years old, and all married women whose husbands are taxpayers, are entitled to vote.

— Berbers and nomad Arabs, who have been concentrating on the western frontier of Algeria, on April 16 attacked the French forces posted in the vicinity. The French lost 28 killed, and 100 men, including ten officers, were wounded. The Berber losses were 125.

— A successful demonstration of a steel net that will protect war-ships from torpedo assaults has been made in Narragansett Bay. Battle-ships of the United States navy are to be equipped with the nets at once, and the cruisers and other vessels as rapidly as possible.

— After repeated failures to obtain any satisfactory reply to its demands for arbitration of charges of oppression and confiscation of property of American citizens doing business in Venezuela, the State Department has laid the papers in the controversy before the Senate, with the expectation that Congress will take some action.

— The employers of the Paris building trades have formed a strong organization to resist the demands of labor, and have declared a lockout against the masons which affects 50,000 workmen; 200,000 men of other trades will be thrown out of employment if they refuse to accede to the terms of the employers, who are willing to grant a twenty-per-cent increase over the wages prevailing in 1906. The labor unions demand five per cent more wages, a nine-hour day instead of ten, and the exclusion of non-union men. Many of the labor unions have seceded from the Labor Exchange in order to come to terms with the employers.

— The conference of Secretary Root and the Russian Ambassador, Baron Rosen, April 13, over the situation in Manchuria, is reported to have been entirely satisfactory to both parties. From the standpoint of the Russian government it is explained that they are endeavoring to restore that city as a trade center and carry out plans that were formed before the war. Consul Fisher's objection to recognition of Russian authority at Harbin seems to have been to the manner in which the local officials proposed to obtain their objects rather than to the objects themselves. There will probably be no further friction between the American consul and the Russian government at Harbin over this incident.

— A New York inventor, Mr. A. M. Herring, has contracted to deliver to the United States government before August 15 an aeroplane that will carry 350 pounds, travel at the rate of forty miles an hour, and go 125 miles without touching the ground. He recently sent a model of his machine twenty miles without accident.

— Russian troops have invaded Persian territory in the vicinity of Lenkoran, on the Caspian Sea. The trouble began April 12, between Russian soldiers of the garrison at Belesuvar near the border and a band of Khurdish brigands. Later the brigands returned in force of about 4,000, but were repulsed by the garrison, which after destroying several villages is still in pursuit. Cossacks have been sent to preserve order.

— About one third of the city of Chelsea, Mass., just out of Boston, was swept by a fire which raged for twelve hours on April 12. It is reported that all the banks, more than three fourths of the churches, half of the business blocks, nearly all the schoolhouses, and about five hundred buildings, mostly homes of the poor, were swept away. Eleven persons were killed, seventy-five severely injured, and fully 10,000 are homeless, with their employment gone with the burning of the factories. The monetary loss is estimated at $6,000,000.

— The strike of the employees of the street railway at Chester, Pa., which was inaugurated April 13 for recognition of the union and higher wages, has resulted in serious disorders. Thousands of sympathizers were angered by the placing of twenty men of the State's constabulary near the car barns, and rioting ensued the first day. Deeds of violence marked nearly every day for about a week, and included attempts to burn the car barns, stoning of cars that attempted to run, and firing upon the soldiers and strike-breakers. More State troops have been brought to the scene, and seem to have the situation better in hand. Similar trouble has recently been experienced in Pensacola, Fla., where on April 14 cars were operated for the first time in nine days, and then only as the State militia was lined up on both sides of the streets.

— Destruction of tobacco beds by the “night riders” is reported from Ohio and Indiana, as well as the continued domination of these outlaws over the planters of Kentucky and parts of Tennessee in the matter of raising a crop this season. They are also reported to have extended their operations to the peanut section along the Tennessee River, warning steamboats that carry large quantities of peanuts to St. Louis to cease traffic. For three hours after midnight the morning of April 13, one hundred masked men controlled affairs in Dalton, Ga. They compelled the superintendent of the electric light plant to turn off all the lights, marched the police on duty to the public square where they were kept under guard, while other members of the gang searched many homes, professedly looking for wrong-doers. No violence to persons is reported. Eight young farmers have been arrested by soldiers near Murray, Ky., and placed in jail on the charge of being “night riders.”