p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 29, 1904

Current Mention

— A serious uprising in the island of Samar, one of the Philippine Group, is reported by General Corbin.

— Seven men were suffocated in a soft clay mine near Bolivar, Pa., December 22. The victims were Austrians.

— Ten men of the crews of some push boats on Beaver River, Kentucky, lost their lives by drinking wood-alcohol, a jug of which was among some freight that was being taken down the river.

— Nine persons were killed in a hotel in Minneapolis, Minn., by the falling of a wall of an adjoining building which had been partially destroyed by fire a few days before. The falling brick crashed through the roof of the hotel.

— Dispatches from Panama report a severe earthquake, December 20, at David, a town 180 miles from Panama. Houses were demolished, and the people were panic stricken. The first shock was followed by nine others. The inhabitants whose homes were destroyed are living in the streets. No lives were lost.

— News received from Port Arthur, December 25, reported the capture of Kekwan fort by the Japanese forces, after stubborn fighting, the defenders mostly dying at their posts. Two Russian generals in Port Arthur are reported to have been killed and one wounded in the fighting for the possession of 203 meter hill.

— A dispatch from St. Johns, Newfoundland, says, under date of December 19: “Several schooners belonging on this island, and which were driven off by the gale of December 11, are still unreported. Their crews total sixty men. It is feared they have been lost.” Disasters are reported all along the New England coast.

— The worst period of fogs known in many years is reported from England. A dispatch from London says, under date of December 22: “A dismal pall is spread over the greater part of the kingdom, causing enormous business losses, and threatening to deprive thousands of their Christmas parcels. Statisticians estimate that the losses in a single day of such a fog in London alone amount to fully $3,000,000.”

— The Atlantic liner “Kroonland,” which arrived at New York from Antwerp, December 21, reports being struck by a tidal wave December 12, which brought her to a standstill, and deluged her decks with water. Officers of the “Kroonland” say that when the wave struck the vessel, the water dashed higher than her funnels, and swept the hurricane-deck. Several persons were injured. The voyage is described as the worst the vessel ever experienced.

— A “Bureau of American Republics” has been established at Washington, and a report of work for the year ending June 30, 1904, has just been made by Secretary Hay. Among other things the Bureau has made an effort to establish an international sanitary bureau, and Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Salvador, Venezuela, and the United States have contributed their first annual quotas to this end. Costa Rica and Nicaragua have signified their intention to participate. Hayti and the Argentine Republic will not become parties to it.

— Another uprising is threatened in Santo Domingo, and there is friction between that country and Hayti, owing to the failure of the former to expel some Haytian revolutionists who had taken refuge in Santo Domingo. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been suspended.

— Evidence compiled by the New York Child Labor Committee, and recently laid before Governor-Elect Higgins, shows that the evil of child labor is astonishingly prevalent in that State. In Syracuse, for example, children of only four years were found working in factories beside their mothers, from 9 A. M. to 9 P. M. In one factory three hundred children under fourteen years of age were found at work.

— A revolutionary outbreak of serious dimensions took place at Moscow, Russia, lasting several hours. About 5,000 persons participated in the rioting, and many persons were injured in the fighting which resulted from the efforts of the police to disperse the mob. A prominent feature of the demonstration was the distribution of a violent proclamation of the Social Democratic Labor Party, describing the whole country as being in a state of mourning and tears for the sacrifice of life in the Far East for the aggrandizement of the Romanoffs, picturing the government as driving the people to starvation, and calling upon workingmen to enter ceaselessly upon a war for overthrowing the tyrants.

— The effort to modify the autocratic government of Russia, represented in the recent memorial of the zemstvos to the czar, seems likely to be unproductive of any immediate gain in the direction of liberal government, though the reports on this point are conflicting. A St. Petersburg dispatch states that the czar has prepared a reply antagonistic to the memorial on every essential point. “It begins with the declaration that the czar is immovably resolved to hand his full powers over to his son, unimpaired. The source of all laws, he says, must remain with him. The war has disclosed defects in the administration which he will seek to rectify. Subsequent declarations in the manifesto bear upon the internal government of the empire, upon which subject the czar says his only aim is the happiness of his people. He expresses the hope that exceptional administrative measures will be unnecessary. It is anticipated that the discontent that will arise upon the issue of the manifesto will end in the withdrawal of Prince Mirsky from the ministry of the interior, and the return of M. de Witte to the place he held before he was ousted by the machinations of his enemies.” It is announced from St. Petersburg by the Associated Press that Russia is on the eve of abolishing the passport system, though the abolition will apply at first only to the Russian people, and not to foreigners. Under the present system no peasant can leave a commune without an indorsed passport.