Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 3, 1907

— On December 13 the German emperor dissolved the Reichstag because it voted against the appropriation of funds for carrying on the war against the natives of southwest Africa.

— As a result of gratuitous distribution of samples of whisky among children near Henrietta School, New York City, fully a dozen pupils were in attendance quite drunk. The authorities are investigating.

— For the first time since the second occupation of Cuba by the Americans, it has become necessary for the troops to undertake themselves the suppression of disorders, instead of leaving the task to the native Cuban Rurales. In some quarters this is regarded as an indication of the inability of the Cuban civil authorities permanently to maintain peace in the island.

— Count Alexis Ignatieff, a member of the council of the Russian empire, fell by an assassin’s bullet December 22.

— The total embezzlements in the United States during 1906 have amounted to $14,736,653. Of this $10,745,387 was stolen by bank officials.

— A passenger-train making up lost time crashed into a switch engine near Enderlin, N. D., December 23, thereby killing nine men, and injuring thirty-one, six of the latter probably fatally.

— Race troubles during the week in Wahalak, Miss., made it necessary to call out the troops; but fifteen lives were sacrificed before order was restored. Six lynchings were reported within forty-eight hours.

— A famine produced by flood in China has brought 15,000,000 persons to the verge of starvation. President Roosevelt has issued a proclamation calling upon the people of this country to contribute money for the purchase of necessaries for the sufferers.

— A violent earthquake shock lasting one and one-half minutes was felt at Kopal, Asiatic Russia, the night of December 22. This shock was registered in many parts of the world, and scientists are saying that the quake was fully as severe as that of April 18, last, which destroyed San Francisco.

— Even the police department and school-teachers of Chicago seem to have imbibed the spirit of trades unionism. An editorial in a leading paper says that “the non-union teachers are prepared to testify, if assured of proper protection, that they are being constantly intimidated by agents of the Teachers’ Federation.”

— A gigantic oil trust has been organized in Europe, backed by the Rothschild family, which will control fields in Russia, Austria, and Rumania, producing more crude petroleum than the United States. This combination will be in direct competition with the Standard Oil Company, and with the resources of the Rothschilds as capital, may invade this country.

— Heroic performance of duty on the part of officers and crew of a burning coast steamer, the “Strathcona,” prevented loss of life, near Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the night of December 22. Although almost enveloped in flames, the men stayed at their posts until the vessel was beached on the rocks in attempting to enter Port Dufferin, Nova Scotia. The vessel carried 380 passengers, all of whom were safely landed by the crew of sixteen.

— Dr. Lyman Abbott, J. Pierpont Morgan, and other prominent citizens of New York have addressed a letter to Secretary of State Elihu Root regarding abuses in the Kongo. After recounting some of the abuses generally admitted to exist there, it said that “inasmuch as the United States gave its moral support to the establishment of the Kongo government, it is justified in giving its moral support to any undertaking to secure conditions in the Kongo that will not disgrace civilization.”