Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 11, 1905

—A constitution for the government of the Transvaal has been promulgated by the British government. It establishes a legislative assembly, all members of which, save executive officers, are to be elected. Negroes are excluded from the franchise; also those not included in the latest list of burghers who have not occupied for six months premises valued at $500 or rented at fifty dollars or more per annum.

—The progress of the teamsters' strike in Chicago was marked by fierce fighting in the streets, May 1 and 2, in which scores of people were injured, and several were killed. A spirit of utter lawlessness possessed the mob of strikers and their sympathizers, and in many cases people in no way connected with the strike were made the victims of deadly assault. Prominent business men of Chicago sent an appeal to Governor Deneen for the presence of the State troops to restore peace, but this move was opposed by Mayor Dunne and the chief of police. Suits for damages have been filed in the superior court of Chicago, against President Shea of the Teamsters' Union.

—May day in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, was marked by a terrible tragedy, similar to that in St. Petersburg a short time ago. A parade of workingmen was fired upon by the troops, and more than one hundred persons, some of whom were women and children, were shot down. The shooting is said to have been entirely unprovoked, and public indignation in Warsaw and throughout Poland is intense. There were serious disturbances also at Lodz, four persons being killed there. At Militipol and Nizhni Novgorod, in European Russia, there were serious Easter disturbances. At the former place the mob held possession of the streets, and burned a portion of the town, and at the latter a pitched battle occurred between the mob and the troops, many persons being wounded by bullets, and one killed.

—Latest advices from the Eastern Asiatic coast report the Russian Baltic fleet as still hovering in the China Sea, south of Formosa, no fighting between it and the Japanese fleet having occurred. Two reasons may have influenced the Russian admiral to tarry in this position, one being the advantage of effecting a junction with Admiral Negobatoff's squadron, and the other, the advantage of being near a French port in case of disaster to his fleet, as it is certain more favor would be shown him by France than by the United States or Great Britain. The Russian admiral has apparently been waiting for Admiral Togo to come south and fight him near Kamranh Bay, and the Japanese commander, on the other hand, having made preparations to deal with the Russian fleet when it comes farther north, as it must do to reach its destination, is not going to depart from his plan of campaign by going south, away from his home base. It is reported that a letter written by Admiral Rozhdestvensky to his relatives in Russia pictures the situation as a hopeless one for himself on account of the lack of discipline among the sailors of his fleet.