Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 23, 1905

— A great storm of hurricane violence swept over England, March 13 and 14, causing great damage to property on land and sea. The largest individual disaster was the wreck of the British ship 'Khyber' off Lands End, resulting in the loss of twenty-three lives.

— By vote of a strongly Republican legislature in Colorado, before which body the contest for the governorship of that State had been brought for settlement, Governor-elect Adams was ousted from his seat and Ex-Governor Peabody, his political opponent, was installed as governor. The latter, according to previous agreement, resigned one day later, and his place was given to Lieutenant-Governor Macdonald.

— President Castro of Venezuela has assumed a defiant attitude toward the United States and European powers, refusing to discuss matters in dispute with diplomats, and even hinting at a projected invasion of America with a Venezuelan army. The majority of the people of Venezuela, it is said, would welcome foreign interference.

— Dispatches from Valparaiso, South America, bring word of the prevalence of bubonic plague in portions of Chile. The population of the seaport town of Pisagua has been thrown into a state of panic by an epidemic of the scourge that is raging there. Hundreds of persons have died from the disease.

— Fighting is still going on between Turks and Bulgarians. A dispatch dated at Salonica, March 15, says: “The report that Apostol, the notorious Bulgarian leader, has been killed is confirmed. A sharp engagement took place yesterday between 500 Turkish infantry and cavalry, and a strong band of Bulgarians at the village of Smola, near Ghevveli. The Bulgarians were defeated with the loss of forty-two killed, including Apostol.”

— The Russian forces under Kuropatkin which survived the great battle at Mukden have continued to retreat northward, making a brief stand at Tie Pass, which had been strongly fortified, the Japanese following in pursuit with the evident purpose of enveloping and capturing the Russian army if possible. General Kuropatkin has been succeeded as commander-in-chief by General Linevitch. It is announced that Russia will raise a new army of 400,000 men. At St. Petersburg hope is now staked upon a victory by the Russian Baltic fleet for a turning of the tide of disaster, and a naval battle now seems probable. It is further reported that the Japanese fleet under Admiral Togo is in the vicinity of Singapore at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca.

— The question of charging tuition in the theological school at Yale University is under discussion at that educational institution, and is making considerable stir in religious circles. The sentiment in favor of tuition is strong among some, having started, it is said, with President Hadley himself, the argument advanced being that an education that was worth anything was worth paying for. It has been decided, however, that for the present theological instruction will continue to be free. It is believed that if Yale should initiate the practise of charging tuition in this department of its educational system, other divinity schools in the country would soon imitate the example, and the ministerial profession would be placed in this respect on the same basis as that of law and medicine.

— Conditions of life which prevail in the crowded tenement districts of New York City gave rise to a terrible tragedy there on March 14, when a tenement building full of people was destroyed in the early morning by a fire supposed to be of incendiary origin. Nineteen persons lost their lives, and forty others were injured. The fire started in the basement, and spread with such rapidity that in a few minutes the exits and fire-escapes were impassable. Like most buildings of the kind, the tenement proved to be a veritable fire-trap for its inmates.

— The committee of the French Chamber of Deputies having in charge the bill providing for separation of church and state, has made a report stating that it is useless to put off the separation until after the popular election, as such a delay would be advantageous to Rome, and dangerous to France. Moreover, a popular election upon the subject would stir up a clerical agitation. The report also says: “We maintain that the sole possible solution for the interior difficulties growing out of the regime of the concordat is a loyal and complete separation of church and state, particularly under the democracy wherein the existing universal suffrage and sovereignty of the people make the continuation of an official religion such a defiance of logic and good sense that it seems astonishing that the French republic continued such an equivocal regime during the last thirty-four years.”

— Russia has floated a new war loan of $120,000,000 in France, but upon terms which include a commission of four and one-half per cent, a commercial treaty encouraging the importation of French wines into Russia, and the deposit of a large sum in France to pay for warships ordered there. Russia's difficulty in obtaining this loan is regarded in some quarters as an augury of an early peace with Japan, though the autocracy strongly assert that no peace will be made until Russia has been victorious. Berlin newspapers state that government officials in Russia are fomenting systematic violence against the Jews throughout the empire for the purpose of diverting attention from the revolutionary movement now in progress there. A mob consisting of three thousand persons has burned the houses and plundered the shops of Jews in Minsk. The outrages lasted three days, and the casualties from beatings and stabbings were numerous. The survivors are destitute. Similar atrocities have occurred at Duenaburg, where nearly two hundred Jews were injured. It is reported that anti-Semite riots, systematically incited by state-paid agitators, have occurred in forty-eight places in south Russia, the casualties exceeding 700. The orthodox priests support the agitation from their pulpits. St. Petersburg dispatches state that the destruction of government property by rioters in central and south Russia is extending. Another sugar refinery in Kieff Province has been burned. Refineries and distilleries are chiefly marked for destruction, because both industries, even when nominally private, are controlled by the government. Refugee landowners and agents who have reached the towns state that hordes of peasants visit estates, and say to the owners: 'We have come to take back our land.' If the owner does not resist, he is sent to the nearest town in a cart. If he hides or resists, his property is wrecked. There is no sign of troops to check the lawless element.