News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— About fifty persons were injured on the afternoon of Jan. 14, 1912, when Big Four passenger-train No. 1 was wrecked near Carey, Ohio. Spreading rails, due to the intense cold, caused two of the coaches to leave the track and go into the ditch. The train was late, and was speeding at a rate of about forty miles an hour when the accident occurred.

— The criminal statistics for Scotland, which have just been published, show that the prosecutions for drunkenness and breach of the peace were fewer than in any year since 1897.

— A cablegram received from Ecuador on Jan. 15, 1912, stated that the constitutional government had just gained a brilliant victory over the rebels at Huigra, and that in consequence the revolution is about over.

— Despatches from Paraguay say that the rebel leaders have captured President Liberato Rojas, and forced him to resign. The revolutionary junta has issued a summons to congress to meet and elect a new president who is in sympathy with the reform movement.

— Executive heads of 2,000 corporations, capitalized at $1,000,000 or more each, have been invited to meet in New York early in February to organize the Society for Promoting Efficiency. It is expected that upward of 1,000 will attend. The society is to be national.

— The immense marble and granite home of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, covering a block of lower Broadway, a historic landmark of New York’s early period of sky-scraper buildings, was destroyed by fire on the morning of Jan. 9, 1912. Six lives were lost, and the property loss probably amounted to $6,000,000.

— The German navy now possesses what is believed to be the largest and most powerful gun in existence, a fifteen-inch weapon manufactured by Messrs. Krupp. The first official information that Messrs. Krupp had perfected a gun of this extraordinary size is contained in the “Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten,” or naval year-book, for 1912, which has just made its appearance.

— The first important naval battle in the Turko-Italian war occurred on the Red Sea Jan. 7, 1912, with the result that an Italian cruiser squadron sank seven Turkish gunboats, after a sharp conflict. A large number of Turkish seamen went down with their ships, but others were rescued by boats from the Italian war-ships. A Turkish yacht was captured and is being taken to Italy.

— It has been officially stated that there are now 35,000 efficient Japanese soldiers in Hawaii, who would be expected, in case of trouble between the United States and Japan, to wrest those islands from the United States. The War Department has completed arrangements to equip and forward an entire division of troops, recruited to war strength, to Hawaii for permanent service. The Pacific squadron of armored cruisers has also been ordered to the islands.

— The island of Cuba is threatened with revolution, and consequent intervention by the United States. The Veterans’ Association, an organization of army men numbering several thousands, has issued an ultimatum to President Gomez that unless the law barring army men from politics is declared a dead letter, resort will be taken to something more drastic than an appeal. The suggestion of the Veterans’ Association is revolution. United States troops are being held in readiness for any outbreak that may occur.

— On Jan. 15, 1912, eight companies of State militia, including one field battery, placed the mill district of Lawrence, Mass., under martial law, after a day of rioting due to a strike of 15,000 operatives in the big cotton and woolen mills. At least 15,000 other persons have been thrown out of work by the stopping of machinery, and the attacks on the mills by the strikers. The cause of the strike was the reduction of working hours from fifty-six to fifty-four a week in compliance with the State law. This reduced the salaries of the workers by the amount paid for two hours’ work. However, the strikers now declare they will not return to work without a fifteen-per-cent increase in wages, double pay for overtime work, and abolition of the premium or bonus system.