News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1912

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Reports from Paris show that France is having the driest spring known there for 250 years.

— An ocean patrol service has been started by government Secretary Myer to the southward of the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, to warn vessels of the presence of icebergs.

— Mark Twain’s boyhood home, in Hannibal, Mo., was presented recently to that city by Mr. and Mrs. George A. Mahan, as a memorial of the humorist. Many thousands of admirers of Mark Twain attended the exercises accompanying the presentation.

— One English shipping firm — that of Furness, Withy & Co., of Hartlepool — is said to control a tonnage exceeding that of the entire foreign shipping interests of the United States. This firm’s steamers number, altogether, 307, with 1,411,044 tons’ carrying capacity.

— Nearly 3,000 budding cherry-trees arrived last month from Japan as a gift to the city of New York. They were presented with much ceremony. Thirteen of the best specimens were selected — representing the thirteen original colonies — to be set out near Grant’s tomb.

— In Switzerland last year 109,500,000 post-cards of every kind, but chiefly illustrated ones, were sent through the post-offices, an increase of 7,500,000 over 1910. The post-card craze is likely to increase, as the cards are becoming cheaper every year, and tourists more numerous.

— The postal savings-banks have become very popular, and already they have made a great record. The postmaster-general announces that the sum of $16,200,000 has been deposited. Of this amount $6,437,641 was deposited in thirty-two cities, each having a population of more than 150,000.

— China is taking another step toward advancement in tearing down the Great Wall of China, extending over a distance of 1,500 miles. It has been determined that this old relic, which has long outlived its usefulness, be torn down, and the vast amount of good material be used in paving the roads of adjoining territory.

— Recently the legislature of South Carolina passed a bill making race-track gambling unlawful in that State. Much pressure was brought to bear upon the governor of the State by powerful influence at the command of the race-track gambling element, but he duly attached his signature to the bill, and it becomes a law on July 1.

— Seven tons of Bibles, in Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, and other dialects, were shipped from New York by the American Bible Society to South America on May 16, establishing a new record. The society has also completed the translation of the books of the New Testament for 15,000,000 Quichua Indians of Peru and Bolivia. These books will be made in Argentina.

— The statue of Christopher Columbus, which has recently been erected in the plaza of the Union Station at Washington, D. C., was unveiled on Saturday, June 8, while a battery of United States artillery boomed the national salute of twenty-one guns, and the Marine Band played the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

— In the race to obtain the biggest war-ships, the United States will lead for a few months. The “Texas,” launched at Newport News on May 18, is, besides being the biggest, the most heavily armed war-vessel now afloat, her equipment consisting of ten fourteen-inch guns. Later she will be out-classed by vessels now under construction in Europe.

— Mr. Edward S. Curtis, in an article in Hampton’s Magazine on “The Vanishing Red Man,” disputes the statement, often made, that the Indians are to-day as numerous in North America as at the time of Columbus’s discovery. He asserts that there are now only 100,000 full-blooded Indians on the continent, while four hundred years ago there were at least ten times that number.

— The fastest trains in the world are to be found in England and France. In England there are eight regular daily trains with speeds from 55.1 to 59.2 miles an hour whose stop-to-stop runs are from 72 to 118⅜ miles in length. The French roads run four daily trains over a distance of 77¾ to 107½ miles at speeds of from 56.2 to 61.8 miles an hour.

— A notable gift has just been made to the Congressional Library by Jacob H. Schiff, of New York. It is a collection of Hebrew literature, brought together during many years by Ephraim Deinard, of Arlington, N. J. It comprises more than 10,000 titles, and covers a period of nearly three and one-half millenniums, from the beginning of Jewish national life to the present day.

— A serious fire broke out on the Cunard steamer “Carmania,” lying at her dock in Liverpool, on the afternoon of June 2. The fire was confined to the saloon quarters, which were practically destroyed. The damage is estimated at many thousands of dollars. The hull was not injured, but a large quantity of cargo aboard has probably been badly damaged by water. The origin of the fire is not known.

— Investigations by a German physician, Dr. Weichardt, of Erlangen University, show that muscular fatigue produces in the bodies of animals a poisonous product, which is called kenotoxin. From this an antitoxin may be produced that will counteract fatigue. Vaporized anti-kenotoxin diffused in a class-room at the end of a day’s work has, it is claimed, made the pupils as alert mentally as at the beginning.

— Moving-picture shows on religious subjects may now be given in Roman Catholic churches in America. The Vatican has just given its consent to this distinct innovation at the request of several bishops. The conditions under which the pictures may be shown are that the sacred host be removed from the church during the performance, and that the women be separated from the men. It is also ordered that the church be sufficiently lighted.

— The Turkish garrison of the island of Rhodes has been compelled to surrender to the Italian troops. The honors of war were conceded to the officers, and all were made prisoners, to the number of 2,300. Four thousand rifles and four batteries of artillery were captured. The importance of this victory is everywhere emphasized. Rome believes that it means the downfall of Turkish military authority in the Ægean Sea.

— In order to render to the Cuban government every possible assistance in putting down the insurrection, without actually intervening with the military, the State and War Departments decided recently to grant the request of President Gomez for the purchase of 5,000 Krag carbines and 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition. The material will be sold to the Cuban government at practically cost price, and will be taken out of the stock of the ordnance stores of the War Department.

— M. H. De Young, of San Francisco, says the maritime nations of the world are building not less than 1,500 ships to care for the trade that is to pass through Panama. He believes that the Pacific Coast of the United States will receive an enormous increase in immigration, due to the lowering of the cost of travel for third-class passengers when it becomes possible to send them thither all the way by water from Italy, Austria, Greece, and the Black Sea ports.

— Prof. William Stirling recently gave a demonstration before the Royal Institution of London of the perfected invention by which cinematograph pictures and phonograph records are combined. This machine, called the chronophone, in its present form shows pictures of objects in their natural colors, and reproduces sound perfectly. Such subjects as a rooster crowing, lions roaring at their keeper, a man making a speech, etc., are said to have amazed the audience by their wonderful lifelikeness.

— The Departmental Committee on Tuberculosis in England recommends a system of dispensaries and sanatoria, one dispensary for every 150,000 or 200,000 of the population in an urban center. The dispensary will receive patients in every stage to ascertain whether they are tuberculous or not. Patients will be classified, and be sent on to the institution appropriate to each case. One bed in a sanatorium for every 5,000 of the population should be provided at a cost not to exceed $729 a bed.

— The city of Dairen, formerly called Dalny, is said to be the most up-to-date town in Manchuria. Here the Japanese are spending large sums annually on street, sewer, and lighting improvements. The South Manchuria Railway now runs express-trains four times a week to connect with the trains of the Siberian Railway; they are unsurpassed in the Far East, being equipped with Pullman coaches, dining-cars, and sleepers. The railway also operates a twice-a-week steamer service to Shanghai. The wharves of Dairen are said to be the finest in the Far East, vessels drawing up to twenty-eight feet being moored alongside the quay. The port is open the year round, as the ice that forms in the bay is never thick enough to interfere with navigation.