p. 21 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 30, 1905

Current Mention

— The cyclone season has begun in the South, Randolph County, Alabama, being visited by a storm of this character on March 20. Nine persons were killed, and a large amount of property was destroyed.

— A terrible calamity fell upon the city of Brockton, Mass., the shoe-manufacturing center, Monday, March 20, by the explosion of a boiler in a large four-story shoe factory of the R. B. Grover Company, which at the time was filled with employees. The explosion demolished

a part of the building, and the rest of the structure was almost immediately enveloped in flames. Fifty-four bodies were recovered from the ruins, and forty-four other persons are missing; many bodies being cremated in the fire.

— Two explosions of “black damp” in a coal-mine near Thurmond, W. Va., March 18, caused the death of thirteen men who were in the mine, and the following morning fifteen of a rescue party were killed by a third explosion.

— The United States Senate having postponed action on the pending treaty with Santo Domingo, it is reported that a serious state of affairs prevails in the island as the result, and an internal uprising seems probable. Large sums are due from Santo Domingo to European nations, and it is thought that Dominican ports will be seized by those powers unless the United States will become responsible for the payment of the debts. This brings up again the question whether such action by European powers would be regarded by the United States government as a violation of the Monroe doctrine.

— Four flat and apartment buildings in New York City which were in process of erection and nearing completion, collapsed on March 19, and one other has fallen since. The buildings were begun in December, and hurried toward completion by the usual “contract” methods of work, and during the cold weather the mortar used froze instead of hardening in the natural way, the collapse resulting when the frozen mortar thawed out. All these buildings, says the New York Sun, had been repeatedly inspected by a city official inspector, and pronounced “O. K.” Borough President Ahern after this occurrence ordered an examination of all the buildings that had been erected during the cold weather, and it was found that sixteen of them were unsafe.

— The Russian army defeated at Mukden, and now under the command of General Linevitch, has retreated toward Harbin, and now occupies Kirin and Changchun, Kirin being one of the richest provinces in Manchuria. The Japanese forces followed, and if the Russian commander, who is daily receiving re-enforcements from Harbin, decides to make a stand in his present position, another battle will occur soon, though it is believed the great danger of his position, the Japanese being not only in front, but on both flanks of his army, will induce the Russian general to continue his retreat. On the other hand, a retreat to Harbin would involve the loss of all Manchuria, which, being one of the greatest grain-growing countries in the world, would provide support for the Japanese, while the Russians would have to depend upon the railway for supplies. According to a correspondent of the Paris Petit Journal, five thousand wounded and sick Russians at Harbin died recently in a single week. The wounded are left on side-tracks uncared for. A late Tokyo estimate of the losses in the great battle of Mukden places the number of Japanese killed and wounded at 50,000, and of Russian killed, wounded, and prisoners, up to and including the fighting at Tie Pass, at 175,000. It is reported that the peace party is gaining in influence at St. Petersburg, and that actual peace negotiations have been begun, though the terms offered by Japan are not yet known. Meanwhile the peasant disorders in South Russia continue to spread, according to reports from St. Petersburg. “Provincial journals,” it is stated, “bring alarming reports showing that an actual reign of terror already exists in some districts. Not only are estates plundered and buildings burned, but landlords are brutally murdered. In some places bands of armed mujiks have taken to the forests, and actual battles have occurred between them and estate guardians. Millions of copies of two documents called ‘The Golden Soil’ and ‘Division of Lands’ have been circulated by agitators. Both tell the peasants that the emperor has decreed a division of land. The provincial newspapers are urgently demanding that the government take energetic measures to check the movement before it is too late.”