p. 21 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Dec 22, 1904

Current Mention

— Nine lives were lost by the burning of the steamboat “Glen Island,” in Long Island Sound, December 17.

— The inhabitants of that portion of Samoa subject to the United States are petitioning for self-government, according to news brought by steamer from Tutuila. They object to being governed by laws made without their consent.

— A popular anti-government demonstration took place in St. Petersburg, December 11, which is described as being of greater proportions and producing more excitement in the capital than any previous one since 1901. The mob was charged by mounted police and gendarmes, and about fifty persons were injured. A large number of arrests were made.

— A new treaty negotiated with China by the United States will modify the rigor of the Chinese Exclusion law to the extent of admitting Chinese students and travelers.

— The contest over the governorship of Colorado seems likely to end in the defeat of Adams, the Democratic candidate, who, on the face of the returns, was elected by eleven thousand plurality over Governor Peabody, and the seating of the latter, by the action of the supreme court in throwing out the vote in a number of wards of the city of Denver, on the ground of gross frauds in the voting.

— A physician of Rogers, Ark., is authority for the statement that Miss Carrie Sawney, residing near that city, has just completed a self-imposed fast of forty-eight days, with no ill effects. She weighed 240 pounds at the beginning of her fast, and it was for the purpose of reducing her weight that the task was undertaken. She now weighs 200 pounds, and although for forty-eight days she subsisted entirely on water, she is in the best of health.

— A St. Petersburg dispatch of December 15 states that “the St. Petersburg Douma has unanimously adopted a resolution similar to that adopted by the Moscow city council on December 13, in favor of freedom of speech, press, and domicile, and asking for the abolition of restrictive laws. The Douma’s voters included many Senators, general and privy councilors, editors, and lawyers.” It is reported that the czar has decided to inaugurate a policy of “cautious, conservative reform.”

— Sessions of the Hungarian parliament have recently been of a very turbulent character, owing to the opposition of a portion of the deputies to obnoxious rules of procedure recently put in force by Premier Tisza. At the session of the lower house on December 15 the premier stood for half an hour trying to obtain a hearing amid a tumult of cries from the opposition, and was then forced to give up the attempt to speak, and the session was suspended. It is reported that the government has decided to dissolve the Diet, and order a general election at an early date.

— The committee of Congress having in charge the question of the admission into the United States Senate of senator-elect Reed Smoot, of Utah, a Mormon “apostle,” is conducting a searching inquiry into the nature of the secret oaths imposed by the church upon all members of the Mormon hierarchy, and much testimony very damaging to the political prospects of Apostle Smoot is being produced. Meanwhile a strong influence outside the Senate committee is at work against him, as expressed by a mass-meeting held in Washington, December 11, to protest against the admission of Mr. Smoot, as being “a member of the hierarchy of Baal.”

— The assassin of the Russian minister of the interior, Von Plehve, has been tried, and sentenced to twenty years penal servitude, according to press reports from St. Petersburg. The assassin, whose name is Sasoneff, was allowed to speak at his trial in defense of the character and aims of socialism as maintained by the socialist revolutionary party in that country, of which he is a member. He declared that this party is entirely different from the revolutionary party which accomplished the death of Emperor Alexander II, and that it resorted to assassination only in self-defense. When the committee of leaders of the Socialist party decided on Von Plehve’s death, he said, there were over one hundred persons who volunteered to execute the sentence.

— The annual report of Postmaster-General Wynne announces a prosperous year for the department, and makes many recommendations, including a new postage rate on third- and fourth-class matter, and packages for rural free delivery, to the effect that third- and fourth-class mail matter be consolidated at the rate of postage now paid on third-class mail matter—one cent for each two ounces, and that consideration be given to the recommendation that Congress fix a rate of three cents a pound, or any fractional part thereof, on packages not exceeding five pounds mailed at the distributing post-office of any rural free-delivery route for delivery to a patron on said route. This to apply only to packages deposited at the local post-office, and not to mail transmitted from one office to another.

— News which comes from Poland presents a terrible picture of the situation which prevails there as an outgrowth of Russia’s war with Japan, and the action of the Russian government in drafting Poles into the army. It is stated that “more than forty thousand reservists have just been mobilized and sent to the front, in spite of their protests that Russia is not their fatherland, and that they prefer to die in Poland fighting for liberty and independence to becoming food for Japanese cannon.” Wives of drafted Poles throw themselves under the trains which are taking their husbands to Russia. One father, a widower, on receiving marching orders, hanged his three young children because, he said, he had no one to leave them to. Another widower who received orders on the day of his wife’s death, killed his two young children with a hatchet, and put them in the coffin with their mother. Many other such incidents are reported, giving glimpses of the terrible situation in that unhappy country, the Russian government meanwhile making great efforts to prevent such news from reaching the outside world.