p. 21 | News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 29, 1914

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Cardinal Domenico Ferrata, the papal secretary of state, died recently, after an illness of several days. He was noted as a diplomat, and was regarded as the most successful nuncio of the reign of Leo XIII.

— Jefferson M. Levy, of New York, offers to sell Monticello, the estate of Thomas Jefferson (mansion and 700 acres), in Albemarle County, Virginia, to the nation for $500,000, the property to be maintained as the Virginia home for the presidents of the United States. The property is valued at $1,000,000.

— On October 18, an earthquake destroyed the villages of Kaparelli and Pyri, near Thebes. At Thebes the shocks were accompanied by subterranean rumblings. The Grecian province of Boeotia suffered most. Twenty distinct shocks were felt there. The number of casualties is not known. Provisions and tents are being hurried to those who have lost their homes.

— That the Negroes of the United States operate farms valued at $1,144,181,000 will be a surprise to many. This is the statement which is made for the United States government by William J. Harris, director of the census, preliminary to a bulletin soon to be issued on the whole Negro question. This is an increase of more than twofold over the figures of the previous decade.

— The October crop report of the United States Department of Agriculture shows a probable corn crop of 2,676,000,000 bushels; wheat, 892,000,000 bushels; oats, 1,137,000,000 bushels. These figures indicate an increase over the same crops in 1913 as follows: corn, 78,000,000 bushels; oats, 21,000,000 bushels; wheat, 29,000,000 bushels. Potatoes show estimated increase of 11,000,000 bushels, and apples 10,000,000 bushels.

— Water shipping from ports on the Atlantic to the Pacific has increased 100 per cent since the opening of the Panama Canal, and the transcontinental railroads of the United States have appealed to the Interstate Commerce Commission for permission to lower their coast to coast rates. As much steel and iron is going by way of the canal now as by rail, and since the rate is lower, the railroads fear additional losses of profitable freights.

— Early in October the Navy Department secured bids for the building of two new battleships of the superdreadnaught class. The Newport News Shipbuilding Company will get the contract for one at $7,195,000, and the New York Shipbuilding Company (Camden, N. J.) will receive $7,250,000 for the other. The third ship of the same class will be built at a government yard. The vessels, which will be named “California,” “Mississippi,” and “Idaho,” are the largest yet designed for our navy, being 624 feet long, 97 feet beam, 30 feet draft, displacement 32,000 tons. Each will carry twelve 14-inch guns, four torpedo tubes, and twenty-two 5-inch rapid-firing cannon.

— Hospital authorities are greatly worried over the threatened drug famine as the result of the European war. The imports from Germany, the main source of the American supply, have been entirely cut off, and prices have increased about 500 per cent. The work of relieving suffering will be greatly handicapped, it is asserted, unless American chemists and manufacturers come to the rescue of the hospitals.

— Elm Agiera, one of the largest oil wells in the world, is on fire. It is located in the Tampico (Mexico) district. Eleven acres surrounding the well are all a mass of flame. The well was capped down shortly after the capture of Tampico by the Constitutionalists several months ago. The seeping of oil all around the well had been noticed for some time, but just how it caught fire no one knows. Heavy field artillery has been brought up from Tampico, and an effort made to shoot the cap off the well in the hope that the pressure would be relieved, but the effort was unsuccessful.

— Great distress prevails in the cotton-growing States of the Union because of the collapse of the European demand for the staple. Among the plans to relieve the situation is the “Buy-a-bale” movement which is urging the Northern public to invest in cotton. A group of influential Southern women will stimulate the home consumption by setting the fashion of wearing cotton dresses. Southern Congressmen have proposed a law authorizing the deposit of $250,000,000 of government funds in Southern banks to be loaned to the planters. A St. Louis committee of leading bankers asks the new Federal Reserve Board to approve its plan for a pool of $150,000,000 shared by bankers from all over the country to buy a large portion of the cotton crop, in order to regulate prices.