Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 26, 1910

— There are now over 1,000 Protestant churches and missions in France. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the number was only sixty-eight.

— Thirty-six Negro convicts lost their lives on May 16, by the burning of the stockade at the Lucile mines in Alabama. The man who started the fire, hoping to escape, perished with the other victims. Seventy-five convicts were rescued.

— The World's Sunday-school Convention, with 8,000 delegates, representing more than fifty nations, met in Washington, D. C., May 19-24. Twelve thousand church workers listened to the address of welcome, which was given by President Taft in Convention Hall.

— Thirteen men were killed outright, and thirty others seriously injured, by the explosion of seven boilers in the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company's works at Canton, Ohio, on May 17. One hundred men were at work in the buildings at the time of the accident. The cause of the explosion is unknown.

— Cincinnati, Ohio, is to have a $30,000,000 railroad terminal station, which in size will be the third largest in this country. The new Pennsylvania terminal in New York City is the largest, and the Union Station in Washington, D. C., second in size. The new terminal in Cincinnati will differ from these, in that it will be equipped with office buildings, stores, and other space for rental.

— On the morning of May 15, Los Angeles and surrounding territory were visited by a series of earthquake shocks. Dishes were broken, house ornaments thrown down, and the walls of lighter houses cracked. The quake came as a double shock, with a swaying motion, giving a sensation of seasickness. Seismic shocks were also felt near Marseille, France, at midnight on the morning of May 16.

— By an explosion of dynamite on May 18, the rural guard barracks in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, were shattered, 100 persons killed, and as many more injured. Employees of the public works department, assisted by the rural guards, were loading cases of dynamite on wagons for shipment to the government magazines at Havana when the explosion occurred. The district has been placed under martial law.

— The appointment by President Taft of Gov. Charles E. Hughes, of New York, to fill the place on the Supreme Court bench left vacant by the death of Justice Brewer, meets with very general approval, despite the regret, often expressed, “that one so exceptionally equipped for the labors the people wish to have performed is to represent them as a judge rather than as an advocate.” Governor Hughes has won success in the practise of law, as professor of law, and as a lecturer at Cornell University. He first came conspicuously into public notice as counsel in the insurance investigation before the New York legislature in 1905-06. He was elected governor of New York in 1906, and re-elected in 1908. His unselfishness, firmness, and independence in that office have brought him prominently before the people.

— America's latest and greatest fighting machine, the super-dreadnaught “Florida,” was launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yards on the morning of May 12.

— On Wednesday, May 12, the statues of two Polish patriots, Count Pulaski and General Kosciusko, were unveiled in Washington, with appropriate ceremonies. Both these men served bravely and capably in the Revolutionary armies, Pulaski dying of wounds received in an assault on the British lines. The meeting in Washington of the Polish National Alliance, representing more than two million Polish-speaking people in the United States, at the time when the nation thus honored these heroes added interest to the event.