News Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 22, 1902

—Queen Wilhelmina is reported to be convalescing very slowly, and is still the object of considerable anxiety in court circles.

—A trip across the continent in four days is now made possible by the twenty-hour trains which are to be run between New York City and Chicago.

—Another automobile race has been held in Europe, the course being from Paris to Vienna. The casualties were one killed and four wounded.

—Crops in central Illinois, and in sections of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota were badly damaged by wind and hail storms, July 16.

—Very hot weather prevailed in Paris on the occasion of the anniversary celebration of the fall of the Bastile, and five hundred cases of sunstroke occurred among the soldiers and spectators.

—An explosion of two powder magazines in a silver mine at Park City, Utah, July 16, caused great loss of life to men at work in the mine. Thirty-three bodies were recovered, after which the rescue bands were forced out of the mine by the accumulating gas. It is believed that about twenty more are dead in the mine galleries.

—The Chicago freight handlers' strike recently inaugurated cost the city $2,000,000 daily while it was in full effect, the loss falling principally on the merchants. The strike is now ended, the men receiving some advance in wages, but not the amount demanded by the union. On other contested points the victory appears to be with the railway companies.

—The Taft mission to Rome, it is now reported, has been a failure so far as its purpose concerning the removal of the friars is concerned, and it is announced that Governor Taft will soon sail for Manila, and that he has requested that the remaining negotiations be conducted there with some papal official whom the Vatican may designate. For the present, the negotiations are suspended. The friars, it is stated, will not be forcibly removed from the Philippines, but will be left to shift for themselves. There are about four hundred of these now at Manila, who have been driven out from their parishes, these being about four fifths of the whole number in the islands. They are at present supported by church funds.

—Bishop Slattery, of St. Joseph's Academy at Baltimore (Catholic), has created a sensation in Roman Catholic circles by the assertion, made recently at an ordination service, that the Roman Catholic Church is losing ground in the United States, since the census figures printed in the official Catholic directory show an increase in the last twelve years of only 2,675,390 communicants, which is 29,784 less than the Catholic immigration to this country in the same period. Among the comments following Bishop Slattery's assertion is the following from a "well-known priest" of Baltimore, whose name is not given: "The woeful phase of this revelation is the terrible increase of atheism. It is a fact that only a small portion of the Catholics fall away from the church by apostasy to the sects. They drop from the church into the ranks of atheists, and their children grow up absolutely godless."

—The profits of the steel trust for several months past, according to official figures which have been made public, are at the rate of $140,000,000 a year.

—At a recent session of the National Education Association a resolution was passed for the reading and study of the Bible as literature in the public schools.

—Minister Wu Ting Fang, about whom so much has been said in American papers during his residence in this country, has been succeeded as Chinese minister at Washington by Sir Liang Cheng. The new representative of the oriental empire is a Harvard graduate.

—A rise in the Mississippi River is threatening loss to farmers on the Missouri lowlands bordering the great stream for a distance of seventy-five miles. A further rise of eighteen inches will flood several hundred square miles of corn fields.

—The marquis of Salisbury resigned the premiership of Great Britain, July 11, and his nephew, Mr. Arthur Balfour, succeeds him at the head of the British government. Lord Salisbury has held the position of premier four times, covering a period of fifteen years.

—The oil field at Jennings, La., was swept by fire July 15, from the effects of a bolt of lightning, which struck a large oil-tank. The flames, fed by gas and oil, spread rapidly, and it became necessary to close the mouths of the oil wells in the vicinity with mud and water. Several companies suffered heavy loss.

—Among the reported happenings in “society” at Newport, where New York's “four hundred” are mostly to be found when the metropolis is “empty,” we note the mention of a recent dinner given by Mrs. Fish in honor of a pet monkey, and a rival entertainment presided over by Mrs. Jones, at which the table centerpiece was a stuffed coon mounted on a tree stump.

—A bitter feeling is reported to exist between factions of the Boers in South Africa, those who fought through to the end being very resentful toward those who helped the British forces during the last year of the fighting. Serious difficulties are arising out of this situation, and the work of readjusting affairs in the Transvaal and Orange River colonies promises to be a difficult undertaking.

—The barbers' union of Jersey City is endeavoring to suppress Sunday work by barbers there by taking proceedings under the “Vice and Immorality Act,” and recently eight barbers and two butchers were arrested as violators of this statute. Thus by human legislation honest labor is made vicious and immoral because performed at a certain time in the week, while at the same time loafing is made commendable.

—Some people in Chicago and elsewhere who have been eating berries recently shipped from Stevensville, Mich., are due to become ill with smallpox, according to reports from the latter place, the statement being that a number of crates of berries were shipped which had been picked by persons having smallpox in a very light form, which at first was mistaken for a mere rash. The health officer of the township states that the fruit picked by these persons is undoubtedly infected with smallpox germs.

—A telegram from Victoria, British Columbia, states that General Dorward, who was in command of the allied forces at Tientsin, has arrived from the Orient, and announces his belief that a war between Japan and Russia is certain unless Russia evacuates Manchuria.

—The chief chemist of the Agricultural Department at Washington, Dr. Wiley, has advertised for about a dozen young men who are willing to be experimented on by eating foods supposed to be “doctored” with ingredients detrimental to health. By this means the Agricultural Department hopes to determine to what extent poisonous foods are manufactured and put upon the market in this country.

—A general break-up in the city government of Minneapolis is reported, Mayor Ames having gone to a health resort in Indiana, and the chief of police being in hiding, while other officers are either fugitives from justice or under arrest. A police reporter is acting mayor and chief of police, new officials have been sworn in to fill vacancies, and orders have been issued to close the saloons at midnight and shut up all gambling dens and dives.

—Reports of an eruption suggestive of a volcanic outbreak have been coming recently from Tulsa, I. T. Surveyors are said to have found large fissures in the sides of the hills through which gas is escaping under great pressure from beneath, while from the top of the highest hill large bowlders are ejected and scattered over the surrounding land. It is believed that a great gas and oil field has been discovered, but residents in the vicinity are reported to be viewing the situation with considerable apprehension.

—Professor Wagner, the city architect of Venice, Italy, is reported as expressing a conviction that practically the whole of this celebrated city is doomed to destruction. An investigation which was started by the recent collapse of the Sansovino tower and campanile, or bell tower, of St. Mark's cathedral, discloses, he says, that the subsoil has deteriorated, and that the piles and pillars on which the buildings rest are rotten, and unable much longer to withstand the pressure. Shrinkages and sinking in the subsoil have been observed for years, but it was not thought until recently that serious damage to the city might result.

—A possible indication of what church services are coming to in this age of inventions and religious degeneracy, is shown by the following press item from Washington, Ind., dated on a recent Sunday: “The fight between rival telephone companies evolved the idea of placing transmitters in all the Protestant churches in this city, so that patrons of the Central Union Company can ‘cut in’ on any ‘church line,’ and hear the sermon and services. This new scheme was given a test to-night, and proved a success, although none but the Christian church was properly connected. Throughout the city and county people were at their ’phones, listening to the sermon delivered by the Rev. J. F. Floyd. The transmitter is placed in the pulpit, and is so arranged that the minister's voice and the choir singing can be heard distinctly by those who are unable or unwilling to attend church. The local ministers are highly pleased with the new scheme, claiming that it gives them a wide field of labor.”