News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 27, 1916

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Tomasso Salvini, the world-famous Italian tragedian, died in Florence, Italy, on January 1, at the age of eighty-eight years, lacking one day.

— The largest shade tree which the American Genetic Association has been able to discover in the United States, is at Worthington, Ind., a sycamore 42 feet 3 inches in circumference.

— Figures indicating the growth of the antituberculosis campaign in the United States show that in the year 1905 about $5,000,000 was spent in this movement, while during the year 1915 over $22,500,000 was spent. These figures are part of the annual statistical statement of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis.

— A clever carpenter at Medford, Mass., has spent ten years in constructing a small mahogany table which contains twenty-nine secret drawers. These drawers cannot be opened unless certain skilfully concealed buttons are pressed. Besides the twenty-nine drawers hidden in the table, there are two shelves, five covers, and one door. The table is two feet two inches square.

— There are already manifestations of opposition to the change in form of government in China from republic to monarchy. How serious the movement is remains to be shown. There is an uprising in the province of Yunnan, under the leadership of Tsai Ao, its former military governor, who is reputed to be acting in the interests of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who was the first provisional president of the Chinese Republic.

— An adding machine which is four times as large as the ordinary machine, is described in Popular Mechanics. This machine is equipped to add figures which total within one unit of ten duodecillions, and can not only add, but can also subtract, multiply, and divide. It can handle forty columns of figures at one time, and in no way confuse the several results. The machine measures thirty-three inches in width, but weighs only thirty-five pounds.

— Gov. Winfield Scott Hammond, of Minnesota, died at Clinton, La., December 30, of a stroke of apoplexy, following an attack of ptomaine poisoning. He had been in the South about a week inspecting his extensive land and timber interests in Louisiana. Governor Hammond will be succeeded in office by the lieutenant governor, J. A. A. Burnquist. Governor Hammond was fifty-two years of age, and had held many important public offices in his State.

— The meeting of the Pan-American Scientific Congress in Washington was made an occasion for expressing political sentiments of amity and good will among the nations represented, as well as considering scientific and social subjects. The keynote of a desire for closer and definite unity as to matters of common interest was struck by Secretary of State Lansing in his opening address. He urged such an alliance, as to international relations, as would be expressed by the sentiment, “One for all, all for one.” There was an evident design to remove from the minds of the Latin-Americans any remnant of the formerly strongly held prejudice as to designs of overlordship entertained toward the South and Central American states by the United States. Mr. Lansing, in his address welcoming the Scientific Congress, said: “When we attempt to analyze pan-Americanism, we find the essential qualities are those of the family,—sympathy, helpfulness, and a sincere desire to see another grow in prosperity, absence of covetousness of another’s possessions, absence of jealousy of another’s prominence, and above all, absence of that spirit of intrigue which menaces the domestic peace of a neighbor. With all earnestness, therefore, I commend to you the thought of the American republics, twenty-one sovereign and independent nations, bound together by faith and justice, and firmly cemented by a sympathy which knows no superior and no inferior, but which recognizes only all equality and fraternity.”