News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 23, 1916

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The grasshopper is the most destructive of all insects, which, when in normal condition, consumes in one day ten times its weight in vegetation.

— The European war to date has cost all belligerents about $60,000,000,000, not counting destroyed property and pension obligations originating from the war.

— Members of the Vegetable Growers’ Association of America, in convention recently at Chicago, announced that an odorless onion would soon be put on the market.

— There are about 8,000,000 foreign-born persons living in the United States today. Of these, the Federal Bureau of Education reports, nearly 1,500,000 adult males are unable to speak the English language.

— The ukulele, a pseudo-Hawaiian musical instrument invented by a Portuguese, has jumped into great popularity in this country. The Department of Commerce reports that the American demand is so great that Hawaiian manufacturers are now turning out 1,600 instruments a month.

— Virginia joined the sisterhood of prohibition States on November 1, when the Mapp act, prohibiting the sale of ardent spirits, except by bonded drug stores, and throwing stringent restrictions around their shipment, became effective. About six hundred and fifty liquor dealers will close their doors.

— The after-dinner cigars smoked by Pierpont Morgan cost $1.25 apiece. They are obtained from a Cuban factory, and were ordered in lots of from 5,000 to 6,000. Most of these superfine smokes are made by one man, who is paid forty cents each for rolling them. His average day’s output is about twenty-five.

— Wisconsin convicts are receiving lessons by mail in a correspondence school conducted by the State University. Many of the prisoners who are thus seeking to better their condition after they are liberated, are studying mechanical engineering, and others are taking courses in Spanish and French.

— Secretary Baker has inaugurated a new system of recruiting for the army. He divides the country into districts, and notifies the officer in charge that he must recruit at least one man for each one thousand people in his district. By this plan the War Department hopes to enlist at least 100,000 men as a “starter” for “preparedness.”

— Joseph Hartigan, Commissioner of Weights and Measures, says the 30,000 bakers in New York City are uniting in a petition to the United States government to stop the export of wheat. The commissioner says the wheat crop is 400,000,000 bushels short, and if its export is not quickly stopped, the price of bread will go up 100 per cent by January 1. He says the people all over the country will join the New York bakers, and the slogan will be heard everywhere, “Feed America first.”

— A petition two and one-half miles long, bearing the signatures of more than 150,000 persons, was recently presented to the English Parliament by representatives of Ulster County, Ireland. The petitioners besought the government to prohibit the sale of liquor in England and Ireland until six months after the war.

— The Denver mint is working day and night to supply the demands for nickels and pennies that are flooding the Treasury Department. More than $10,000 in nickels and $2,000 in pennies are turned out every day. Authorities state that such unusual calls for small coins indicate brisk trade and prosperous times.

— Ida Elionski on a recent Sunday swam around Manhattan Island, a distance of about forty miles. She did it in eleven hours and thirty-five minutes. This is said to be the greatest swimming feat ever performed. She was followed by a boatload of reporters, who were there to see that the performance was a genuine one.

— The cholera epidemic continues to spread throughout Japan, despite the efforts of the doctors to combat it. The newspapers have been prohibited from publishing statistics of the total number of cases, but these are now estimated to be several thousand. All the ports are affected, and shipping is seriously hampered. The disease is believed to have been propagated by refuse thrown into the sea from a steamer which had cholera cases on board.

— As a result of investigations by more than six hundred chemists who have been working for a number of weeks endeavoring to determine the best use for the buildings and machines belonging to the Du Pont Powder Company, the company has decided, when the war is over, to turn them into plants for making dyes, provided ample assurance of protection can be obtained from the government. The buildings and equipment are valued at $60,000,000.

— Monday, October 9, the anniversary of the great fire which in 1871 reduced the greater part of the city of Chicago to ashes, destroyed its entire business center, and caused a property loss of about $190,000,000, was set apart as “Fire-Prevention Day,” devoted to “cleaning-up” and fire-prevention measures, and the consideration of means whereby fires, which now take an average annual toll of over 3,000 lives and $250,000,000 worth of property, may be prevented.

— President Wilson and Secretary of War Baker cabled the greetings of America to the Filipino people on the convening of their first native legislature. During the closing days of Congress the Philippine Government Bill was passed, abolishing the commission and providing for a native congress, thus giving 800,000 Filipinos the right of suffrage. The functions of the Philippine Congress are limited to the extent that coinage, currency, and immigration laws shall not go into force without the sanction of the President of the United States. The office of governor-general is retained. All Americans in the islands who desire to vote must become “naturalized.”

— Orders for more than two hundred aeroplanes have been placed by the War Department as a first step in expansion of the aviation service under the army reorganization act, and contracts for about one hundred additional machines of various types probably will be awarded in the near future. In most cases delivery within a short period is stipulated. Nearly one hundred of the planes already ordered are of a special school type, for use at the regular army training school at San Diego, Cal., and the national guards schools at Mineola, N. Y., and Chicago. The others are of reconnaissance, pursuit, and battle types. The machines, orders for which were distributed among several companies, are to develop a power ranging from 80 to 200 horsepower.

— President Wilson has made public the names of seven men whom he has appointed members of an advisory commission to be associated with the Council of National Defense created by the last session of Congress. They are all men of achievement and distinction in their several fields of activity. They are named as follows: Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; Dr. Franklin H. Martin, a distinguished surgeon recommended by the affiliated medical societies of the country; Howard E. Coffin, the well-known automobile engineer, who has served as chairman of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness; Dr. Hollis Godfrey, president of the Drexel Institute at Philadelphia; Bernard Baruch, a New York banker; and Julius Rosenwald, the president of a large Chicago mail-order house.