News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 7, 1915

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Approximately 2,000,000 Jews have been driven from their homes in Russian Poland, according to a cablegram from the Petrograd office of the Jewish Colonization Association.

— Dire need of food among the people of Albania and Palestine was reported by Ambassador Morgenthau to the State Department. In these countries, the report said, more than 300,000 persons are facing famine, and 30,000 have already died of starvation.

— Hon. Myron T. Herrick, American ambassador at Paris, closed his duties Nov. 28, 1914. He was succeeded by Hon. William G. Sharp. The Paris newspapers voiced the deep regret of the French people on being deprived of the splendid services of Mr. Herrick at that critical period.

— Thus far, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, $750,000 has been spent in the campaign against the live stock foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. An emergency appropriation of probably $2,500,000 will be asked of the present Congress to assist in the work of stamping out this disease.

— A reserve army that will consist of more than 150,000 men in five years is being trained by the United States War Department in cooperation with educational institutions in the country. Students between the ages of eighteen and thirty in universities, colleges, and high schools are trained during the summer to form this army.

— A five-mile tunnel through the Jura Mountains from Moutiers, France, to Grenchen, Switzerland, was pierced on Oct. 27, 1914, after three years of uninterrupted work. The tunnel will shorten railway communication between Paris and Bern and Paris and Milan. The cost of cutting the tunnel through the mountains was $5,000,000.

— Business circles were optimistically inclined as a result of the reopening of the New York and Philadelphia stock exchanges recently. The Paris Bourse resumed operations Dec. 7, 1914. Financial circles are adjusting themselves, and business will resume its normal conditions or be brought into line with the changes made necessary by the war. The New York exchange closed its doors July 30, 1914, at the outbreak of European hostilities, simultaneously with the closing of the exchanges in London, Berlin, and Paris.

— The use of radium on the battle field as a surgical accompaniment has not only been suggested by Madame Curie, the codiscoverer with her late husband of this wonderful substance, but she has organized the nucleus of a service employing automobiles carrying radiographic apparatus. By the use of this appliance it is said that bullets have been located and extracted from the heads of wounded soldiers, and that the lives of several patients have been saved whose brains had been pierced by bullets.

— Officials of the various government departments which touch the country's business activities feel confident that the most serious effects of the European war on American business have passed. The restoration of the credit balance with Europe has greatly eased the situation. This is due to the increasing demand from Europe for American food supplies, and also to the sudden development of an abnormal trade in articles needed by the huge armies now in the field.

— Chicago's municipal tuberculosis sanitarium places that city in the front rank among the cities of the world in its care of tubercular victims; some claim it even gives it first place. The sanitarium has thirty fine buildings, a parkway, promenades, flower plats, exercising grounds, and many innovations for the comfort and pleasure of the patients, and will occupy a site of 150 acres. There will be provision for 950 patients in the sanitarium and 3,000 incipient cases in their homes. The city plans to spend $900,000 annually, and the State and county $400,000, in the maintenance of the work of the institution.

— A new and unique feature has been opened in connection with the public library of Chicago. It is the department of music. In this department there is to be 2,100 bound volumes of music and 1,000 pieces of sheet music. The department was opened Nov. 3, 1914, and the music will be placed in public circulation. Cards will be issued in the music room to persons who hold book cards or who are eligible for a library card. One volume of music may be taken out for one month, but it cannot be renewed, and five pieces of music may be taken out for two weeks. A large supply of organ music will be placed in stock very soon. This new feature opens a great opportunity to hundreds who have a struggle to obtain music for the home.