News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 8, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— “It has been estimated that 1,500,000 men and women of the United States are disqualified for work by the use of intoxicants.”

— The dentists have learned that they can make teeth insensible for thirty minutes of dental work by injecting into the spongy bone beside the tooth a solution of novocain. This discovery will be a great boon to humanity.

— Out of 62,400 building-trades workmen regularly employed in Chicago, 41,600 are now idle. This great slump in building is the result of extreme cold weather since the first of the year. Plumbers are the only men not affected.

— Fifty-three of the crew of the British steamer “Wistow Hall” were drowned on the morning of Jan. 18, 1912, when the ship foundered on the Bullers of Buchan, off the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Only the captain and three of the crew reached shore.

— The Norwegian cabinet will ask for an extraordinary credit of $4,125,000 for the development of Norway’s naval defense.

— The revolt in the republic of Santo Domingo is spreading rapidly. All the telegraph land wires have been cut by the rebels.

— It is estimated that 750,000 people gathered to welcome John Cardinal Farley when he landed in New York January 17, on his return to America as a newly created prince of the Catholic Church.

— Through the munificence of Andrew Carnegie and other philanthropists another magnificent marble building, rivaling in architectural beauty the Pan-American Union building, soon is to be erected in Washington, D. C., at a cost of $850,000, for the Brotherhood of North American Indians. This society is of recent origin, and has the financial and moral support of many men of means throughout the country.

— An aftermath of the late Moroccan affair between Germany and France, was the resignation recently of the entire French cabinet, including Premier Caillaux. This was brought about by the charge that members had been in secret negotiations with the German government. As a result of the upheaval, the resignations were accepted by President Fallières, and Raymond Poincare has been appointed premier. This new head of affairs has chosen a cabinet that seems to give general satisfaction.

— The impending coal strike in England brings the nation face to face with a great peril. More than a million miners have decided to walk out, throwing still other millions of workmen out of employment; and for want of fuel the industries everywhere will be forced to suspend operations by April 1, 1912. Viewing the situation from Manchester, it is declared that the country confronts the greatest industrial strike it has ever had to meet since the peasant uprising in 1381, more than five centuries ago.

— The great Peace Palace, donated in the main by Mr. Carnegie, is gradually rising with majestic form on its site at The Hague. It is expected that it will be in readiness for the Third Hague Conference in 1914 or 1915. Various nations are contributing from their leading products for the finish or the furnishing of rooms. Rare woods are being furnished by South America, and ivory and other means of ornamentation are being contributed by the East. It is expected that each nation will have a room, and that the various peace organizations will have headquarters there.

— The Chicago Tribune’s summary for 1911 shows there was a decrease in the United States in the number of suicides, legal executions, embezzlements, and homicides compared with the figures for the year before. There were 12,242 cases of suicide, against 12,608 in 1910. The proportion of suicides as between men and women remained about the same, being 8,130 men and 4,112 women. Physicians again head the list among professional men, they numbering 27, as compared with 51 in 1910, and clergymen come next, 11 having taken their own lives. Among business men 19 bankers and brokers have committed suicide during the past year.

— At last, after sixty years’ effort, New Mexico, on Saturday, Jan. 6, 1912, was admitted into the Union as a State.

— Arthur M. Beaupre, the American minister to Cuba, has been notified by the Cuban secretary of state of the full ratification by the veterans’ leaders, on Jan. 20, 1912, of an agreement with the Gomez administration, which assures the country of peace without the necessity of intervention by the United States.

— Conpetroline is a new generative power for air-ships. The inventor has succeeded in transforming gasoline into a paste, which is put up for use in the form of tablets. These can be dissolved and diluted by a certain liquid, the identity of which the inventor does not disclose. These tablets are non-explosive, and light.

— The completion of one of the greatest engineering feats of the present age was celebrated Jan. 22, 1912, when the first great “railroad over the sea,” the Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway, was formally opened. By using the Florida Keys as stepping-stones, this steel highway runs over miles of salt water, from a point a few miles south of Miami, Fla., to the island city of Key West.