News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 4, 1915

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— According to reports in the press, some one asked Lord Kitchener the question, “When will the war end?” and his answer was, “I do not know when it will end, but it will begin in May.” This answer is significant and suggestive. Most of us have been thinking the war has been on in real earnest since last August.

— Gen. Roque Gonzales Garza was named provisional president of Mexico by the Mexico City Convention over which he presided. The former provisional president, Gen. Eulalio Gutierrez, resigned unexpectedly, and together with Generals Blanco, Robles, and Jose Vasconcelos, left Mexico City for Pachuca. Martial law has been declared by General Garza, and the city is being patrolled by mounted police. In electing Garza, the convention declared itself to be supreme, and until a new president is elected, has assumed all the legislative, executive, and judicial powers.

— The orders for American products from the warring nations of Europe total $300,000,000. To meet this demand for United States products, 1,000,000 men previously out of employment have gone back to work since New Year’s Day. All the up-to-date factories from the Atlantic to the Pacific are preparing for a large output, and a large increase in the number of their employees. Millions of dollars’ worth of flour, army shoes, uniforms, tents, bandages, harnesses, gun parts, shrapnel, shells, and motor trucks have been ordered. Canada has received an order for $30,000,000 worth of products, and it is said agents are in the Dominion now, ready to place another order amounting to $20,000,000 more.

— The national House of Representatives on January 12 rejected by a vote of 204 to 174 the proposed Constitutional amendment giving nation-wide suffrage to women.

— Coleman L. Blease ended his spectacular career as governor of South Carolina on January 14, by resigning, five days before his term of office expired. He had extended executive clemency to 2,704 prisoners while governor.

— Lieut. Gen. Anatole Mikhailovitch Stoessel, the Russian commander who surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese, died in Petrograd on January 17. He had been paralyzed for several months. General Stoessel was born in 1848.

— Great Britain has decided to hold up letters destined for countries with which she is at war if they are inclosed in letters being forwarded to neutral countries, unless the envelope is unsealed. Heretofore considerable mail from England has been sent to Germany by way of the United States.

— Along the French-Belgian seacoast, on January 23, for the first time in the history of the world, general sky battles were fought. A fleet composed of twelve or thirteen German aeroplanes, the largest number of air raiders ever assembled, attacked the French coast town of Dunkirk. Several British and French aviators ascended, and an engagement followed.

— Italy was visited recently by one of the most disastrous earthquakes of history, in which villages were razed and thousands of lives lost, the total casualties being estimated at from 30,000 to 50,000. In scores of hamlets only a small percentage of the people escaped. Relief work was immediately organized, Rome particularly being used as a city of refuge. In view of the warring conditions in Europe, help for the sufferers must come in large measure from the United States.

— Contracts were awarded by the Navy Department recently to the Electric Boat Company for one seagoing submarine, to be built in Quincy, Mass., at $1,350,000, and for three coast defense submarines, to be built in Seattle, Wash., at $450,000 each. A contract was also awarded to the Lake Torpedo Boat Company for four coast defense submarines, to be built in Bridgeport, Conn., at $427,000 each. The big seagoing submarine of 1,000 tons displacement will be twice as large as any submarine in a foreign navy, though some are now building in Europe of more than five hundred tons.

— In the average watch the balance wheel vibrates 300 times a minute, 18,000 times each hour, 432,000 times a day, and 157,788,000 times a year. As each vibration covers about one and a half revolutions, the shaft on which the balance wheel is mounted makes 236,682,000 revolutions in its bearings each year. A modern locomotive with seven-foot drivers would have to run 985,824 miles to make an equal number of revolutions. Running at the rate of a mile a minute, without stopping, it would take 683 days, or nearly two years, for the axle of the drive wheel of the locomotive to make as many revolutions as the balance wheel shaft of the watch does in one year, and it would cover a distance of over thirty-one times around the world.

— There were 1,476 disasters on the waters of the United States during the last fiscal year in which the Life-Saving Service worked alone, according to its report to Congress. The vessels involved carried 5,295 persons, and the property was valued at $4,542,985. In 325 other instances the service worked in conjunction with the Revenue-Cutter Service or other agencies, and took part in the rescue of 2,691 persons from vessels valued at $10,641,655.

— The leaders in the battle against the liquor traffic are most sanguine in their prophecy that the United States will be dry in 1920. One million dollars a year is being contributed toward the war on rum. It is said that the saloons in America have been going out of business—being put out—at the rate of forty a day, for the past seven years. In the State of Illinois there are 27,000 monthly subscribers toward the support of the Anti-Saloon League in its war to put out the liquor business.