p. 21 | News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 22, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

—New-year’s day, 1912, marked the completion of four fifths of the excavation for the Panama Canal. According to the canal record, the American engineers since beginning their work in May, 1904, have taken 158,010,963 cubic yards of dirt and stone out of the canal bed.

—At noon on Feb. 4, 1912, the great ice bridge at Niagara Falls, that for three weeks had choked the river channel between the cataract and the upper steel-arch bridge below the falls, broke from its shoring and went down the river, taking three persons to their death. Had the accident occurred an hour later, hundreds would probably have lost their lives, since the bridge was considered safe, and many tourists had anticipated the pleasure of venturing upon the ice.

—The agricultural wealth of China may be seen in the fact that it sustains a population more than four times as large as the United States. At Hankow there are skilled laborers in the iron works receiving five or six annas a day, a rate with which American labor can not compete. China possesses wealth in mineral and coal, vast and unutilized. Her coal supply is estimated at twenty times that of Great Britain, and could supply the entire world for a long period of time. Her capacity for manufacture, when her raw material, vast natural resources, and labor supply are utilized, will be among the foremost in the world.

—The United States is the second strongest nation of the world in naval strength, according to the new Navy Year Book. Considering the “Charleston,” “Milwaukee,” and “St. Louis” to be armored cruisers, the total tonnage of the United States navy is placed at 797,341, which is nearly 10,000 tons in excess of that of the German navy—787,638 tons. Great Britain continues to hold its place of supremacy as the greatest naval power of the world. The strength of her navy is considerably more than twice that of either the United States or Germany. France, Japan, and Russia rank next, in the order named.

—The Woodside plant of the Acadia Sugar Refining Company, located at Halifax, Nova Scotia, was destroyed by fire on Feb. 1, 1912. The loss is estimated at $1,000,000.

—There is now a definite movement on the part of the Russian government and capitalists of Russia to extend their railway line across Persia, and intersect with the railways of India.

—On Feb. 3, 1912, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, landed in America. He will review the Boy Scouts in many of our leading cities during his visit.

—The Catholics in France are lamenting that so few men are going into the priesthood. The archbishop of Paris has said that if the present state of affairs continues, there will soon be no priests in France.

—A Catholic teachers’ college for women, is to be erected adjoining the Catholic University near Washington, D. C. The buildings will stand on a fifty-seven-acre campus, and will cost approximately $1,000,000.

—In the Christian it is stated that when 1915 arrives, bringing the five-hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom of John Huss, the people of Bohemia, especially the Czechs, are planning to celebrate it by a great exodus from the Roman Catholic Church.

—The long-protracted task of raising the sunken battle-ship “Maine” was crowned with success Feb. 2, 1912, when the after section, which was not injured by the explosion and comprises approximately half the total length of the ill-fated vessel, was set afloat.

—Yuan Shi Kai has been chosen president of the new Chinese republic, which began its existence Feb. 12, 1912, when the child emperor Pu-Yi, through the empress dowager, abdicated the throne. Press reports indicate that Dr. Sun Yat-Sen has resigned in favor of Yuan Shi Kai.

—On Feb. 14, 1912, more than forty of the fifty-four men indicted in connection with the nation-wide dynamite conspiracy were arrested. Prisoners were taken into custody in practically every large city of the United States where dynamite explosions, directed against the “open shop,” have taken place in the last seven years.

—The revolution in Ecuador assumed a new phase recently when four generals and a former president were taken from prison by a mob and lynched. The United States government is uneasy about the American railway property from Guayaquil to Quito, and is placing several war-ships at Guayaquil, including the armed cruiser “Maryland” and the gunboat “Yorktown.”

—Wisconsin’s income tax law has been affirmed as constitutional by the State supreme court. The income tax is a graduated one, increasing from one per cent on incomes over $800 and under $1,800, to six per cent on incomes of $12,000 and over. State and federal employees are exempt, as are husband and wife whose total income comes within $1,200. For each child under eighteen an additional exemption of $200 is made.

—According to official figures submitted on January 24 to Mayor Gaynor by the finance department, New York City’s total debt at the beginning of 1912 was $1,037,811,718, or approximately $20,000,000 more than the public debt of the United States. During 1911 the funded debt increased $71,432,485, of which $44,200,000 represents bond issues for rapid transit work and the new water-supply system.

—We hear much of the labor organizations, with their 1,750,000 members, and their $5,000,000 last year in aid of strikes; but we hear much less of the organization of farmers, perhaps because they have no strikes, and no desire to shorten the hours of labor. The farmers have over 12,000 fair associations in the country, with over 246,000 members; and their income was over $6,500,000, of which over $2,500,000 was spent in premiums, while the attendance at the fairs was more than 15,000,000. No other business so abundantly enriches the country as does that of the farmer.

—From Telluride, Colo., comes the report that billions of tons of earth and rock tumbled down the sides of Lizards Mountain on the morning of Dec. 21, 1911, when the entire top of that giant peak literally toppled over. The mountain was one of the sharpest pointed in the entire San Juan region. The peak was 14,160 feet high, within 300 feet of Mount Massive, the highest mountain in Colorado. The fall shook the country for miles. So far as is known no one was killed or injured. It is estimated that fully one thousand feet fell from the top of the peak. This is believed to have been occasioned by recent snows.

—That the nations of the world are all answering the call of liberty was the declaration of Resident Commissioner Manuel L. Quezon, of the Philippine Islands, at a recent gathering in New Jersey. The Filipino people desire their independence, he emphatically declared. “Let there be no misunderstanding. The cry for self-government in the Philippine Islands,” he said, “is not the work of a few impatient or ill-advised politicians. It is the cry of the whole people. It is the ripe fruit of the seed planted at Philadelphia by your forefathers in 1776. And you, the Americans of today, ought to feel happy, ought to feel proud of the world-wide achievements of your ancestors.”

—Feb. 9, 1905, the President signed an act for the building of a great dam across the Mississippi at Keokuk, Iowa, but it was not until five years later, namely, Feb. 1, 1910, that the work was begun. Since last December 5,000 men have been at work upon this dam, which is a mile wide. The World says that this is second as an engineering feat to only two other enterprises, the Panama Canal and the great dam on the Nile at Assuan, each of which will be completed in two years. As to the size, the Keokuk dam is second only to that at Assuan, and is the largest in the United States. It will be 5,800 feet in length, 37 feet in breadth, and of the same height. In addition, the power plant and the lock which are to be constructed will overcome the great obstruction to the navigation of the upper Mississippi. It is expected that the result of this enterprise “will make the upper Mississippi Valley one of the greatest of the world’s manufacturing centers.”