p. 21 | News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The bulletless gun has at last made its appearance. It is a German invention, and, instead of bullets, it shoots a gas, which temporarily blinds and chokes the victim.

— The Girl Pioneers of America is the name of a new society that proposes to enlist the activity of young girls on lines analogous to those of the Boy Scouts movement.

— Jane Addams, of Hull House, says that four fifths of all the arrests in the criminal courts of Chicago are of boys and young men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, of whom the large majority are under nineteen.

— The old Congress Hall in Philadelphia, in which George Washington took the oath of office as president at the beginning of his second term, in 1793, is being restored to the appearance which it presented on that historic occasion.

— A bill has been introduced by the Nationalists in the Russian Duma, prohibiting the admission into Russia of Jewish citizens of the United States. In the same bill, provision is made for a general increase in the customs tariff, with special duties to be levied against American goods.

— The Navy Department has just let contracts for the construction of six new torpedo-boats, which will be the largest and fastest fighting crafts of their kind in existence. The boats will be required to develop a speed of from twenty-five to thirty knots (about twenty-nine to thirty-five miles an hour), and their cost will range from $250,000 to $325,000 each.

— Dr. Joseph Lester, the discoverer of antiseptic treatment in surgery, recently died in London, at the age of eighty-five.

— On February 21 a large part of the city of Houston, Tex., was destroyed by fire. The property loss is estimated at $7,000,000, and approximately 1,000 persons were left homeless.

— One vessel sunk, twenty-two others — steamers and sailing vessels — ashore, and three mud-scows carried to sea, are some of the marine disasters caused on the Atlantic coast by a severe gale on the night of February 21, said to be the worst since 1879.

— The Russian peasants in several provinces are said to be in a starving condition. Many have gone mad from hunger, and thousands are trying to subsist on scrapings from granaries, the chopped thatch from their miserable hovels, or bread mixed with earth.

— It is admitted at the State Department that the condition of revolt in Mexico at present parallels, if not exceeds, that which preceded the downfall of the Diaz régime. The unrest seems greater, but entirely lacks cohesion. With a leader, it is feared that conditions will be worse than ever before.

— It is reported that Chairman Henry of the House Committee on Rules has received a letter from a New York banker, stating that Wall Street has advised the small bankers throughout the country that it will force a panic if they do not control their representatives in Congress, and prevent a probe of the money trust.

— Secretary Knox has notified the powers, through a note to the German ambassador, that the United States will insist upon the “open door” policy in China of the late Secretary Hay. Germany has signified her intention to support this country in the plan. This is explained to mean that secret loans and other schemes that would give certain countries a practical lien on the resources of China will not be tolerated.

— Massachusetts has passed a law regulating marriage, which went into force Jan. 1, 1912, to the effect that he who wishes to marry must file public notice of his intention at least five days before obtaining his license. This gives five days for objectors and protesters and questioners; and if there are valid objections offered, the license will not be issued. It is also reported that Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island have passed similar laws.

— The city of Beirut, Syria, was bombarded by a flotilla of Italian war-ships on February 24. All Turkish vessels in the harbor were destroyed. Because of the Italian naval activity in the Ægean Sea, Turkey has declared its intention to close the Dardanelles, and expel all Italians from the country. According to a letter from Tripoli, which has escaped the censor, Italy is making no headway in the war, and is having the greatest difficulty in holding the narrow fringe of territory it has occupied. The cavalry arm is crippled by the loss of thousands of horses. Appeals, it is said, have been made to the Arabs to surrender. The different political and religious chiefs will be acknowledged by the Italian government, and will be paid for their services.