p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 4, 1904

Current Mention

— The university library at Turin, Italy, the most famous in that country, was partially destroyed by fire, January 26. It is estimated that 100,000 volumes were burned. Many rare manuscripts are included in the loss.

— It is reported that Russia's reply to Japan's latest note will indicate an acceptance by Russia of the Japanese terms, and hence will dispel the probability of war. Japan is said to insist on the maintenance of the integrity of China as well as of Corea, while Russia has insisted on an agreement providing only that Corean integrity shall be maintained.

— There are indications of an intention on the part of Colombia to make an attack on Panama, this move being prompted by the necessity to the government at Bogota of doing something to avert its downfall. Governmental affairs in Colombia are reported to be in bad shape. President Marroquin has lost all his prestige, and a revolution would not be an unexpected event.

— News of a great disaster in the Fiji Islands was received at London, January 25, by the following cable dispatch: “A severe hurricane swept over the Fiji Islands, January 21 and 22. The damage in the neighborhood of Suva (the capital, and chief port of the islands on the southwest coast) was chiefly to the banana and other plantations and native houses, but the destruction at Levuka (on the east coast of the small island of Ovalau) was very serious. Whole native villages were swept away, the bonded warehouse was destroyed, and its valuable contents were seriously damaged, and coasting steamers, a bark, several small craft, and many government buildings were destroyed. Only six lives have thus far been reported lost, but news from the provinces has not yet arrived.”

— One of the greatest disasters in the history of coal mining in this country occurred January 25, at the Harwick mine of the Allegheny Coal Company at Cheswick, Pa. The disaster was of the usual kind in coal mines,—an explosion of gas which had collected in the galleries of the mine. All the men in the mine at the time, with one exception, were killed, some being blown to pieces by the violence of the explosion, which was very great, and others being suffocated by the gas into which the air was changed by the explosion, all the oxygen having been burned out of it. The number of lives lost, including two men who were killed at the mouth of the mine shaft, and one who went down in a rescue party, is one hundred and seventy-four. The work of recovering the bodies was one of the greatest difficulty, and progressed very slowly.