p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Oct 1, 1903

Current Mention

— There is a crisis in Servia. The Servian cabinet has resigned by request of King Peter.

— It is reported that a second American cardinal for the United States is soon to be appointed by Pope Pius X.

— A farmers’ anti-automobile association has been organized near Evanston, Ill., where numerous accidents due to carelessness have recently occurred.

— It is reported that an agreement is likely to be reached between Turkey and Bulgaria over the Macedonian situation which will result in averting war for the present.

— The island of Cozumel, situated off the coast of Yucatan, suffered heavily from the recent hurricane, most of the houses being blown down, leaving 5,000 of the inhabitants homeless.

— Bubonic plague has appeared recently at two towns in Mexico in the vicinity of Mazatlan, where there was an epidemic of the disease last year. The plague still lingers in San Francisco, the latest reported case there having appeared on August 9.

— Experiments to test the possibilities of the electrical railway as a means of transportation are being conducted with much success in Germany. On the Marienfeld military road, September 21, a speed of 114 miles an hour was reached, and maintained for two consecutive miles.

— The Panama Canal treaty between the United States and Colombia is dead, owing to the failure of the Colombian Congress to approve of the treaty within the time limit set for its acceptance. This leaves the question of the route of the proposed canal unsettled, the probabilities being, however, that the Panama route will finally be chosen.

— It is estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 Bulgarian inhabitants of the vilayet of Monastir, in Macedonia, have been massacred by the Turks, and every Bulgarian village in the vilayet has been destroyed. It is computed further that 150,000 women, children, and old men are starving to death in the forests to which they fled to escape from the Turks.

— At Gomel, Russia, an anti-Semite riot similar to that at Kishineff was started September 11, and was continued for several days, resulting in the death of ten and the wounding of fifty Jews, together with the destruction of many Jewish residences. The rioters were aided in their work by the Russian troops in the place, who used their power only to prevent the Jews from offering any resistance to the mob’s attack.

— Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, British secretary for the Colonies and the most conspicuous figure in British politics, has resigned from the cabinet, and King Edward is actively engaged in supervising the formation of a new cabinet. Mr. Chamberlain’s resignation is due to lack of support of a protective policy advocated by him for English manufactures, which he believed would unite the English colonies more closely with the mother country, and also enable England to contend more successfully with other countries, especially Germany and the United States, for financial and commercial supremacy.

— The following statement of facts given by the New York Sun shows how the prediction made by Marshall Field, the noted Chicago merchant prince, that under the present policy of the labor unions the industrial prosperity of the country would soon be brought to an end, is having its fulfilment. An annex to the Williamsburg Savings Bank in New York City was begun some time ago, the cost of which was to be $350,000. “Soon after the excavating was begun, last spring, the Italian laborers went on strike. When this was settled, and work had gone forward to some extent, trouble was made by other trades. Just before the iron work was to be erected, the contractors had trouble with the House-smiths and Bridgemen’s Union, and there was another strike. When new men were engaged, members of the union resorted to violence to compel them to quit work. It became necessary to have policemen on guard all the time. Under the terms of the contract the annex was to be completed next May. The contractors came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to finish the work in the specified time in the present unsettled state of affairs in labor unions, and they conferred with the directors of the bank. It was decided that the contract should be canceled, and work on the new building stopped indefinitely.”