Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jul 28, 1904

— Cholera is raging in Persia. At Teheran the number of deaths is at times as high as 900 daily. The European residents have fled to a camp in the mountains.

— An anti-Catholic sentiment was shown in Belgium in the recent elections to the senate and chamber of deputies. A Catholic journal states that “in the chamber, the Catholics have lost six seats, their former majority of twenty-six being reduced to twenty. In the senate the Catholic majority, which before the election was sixteen, is reduced to eleven, the party having lost five seats.”

— A physician named Root, who is employed in the medical service in India, has made from the bacilli of leprosy a serum which is reported to have proved efficacious in the treatment of that disease. A hundred or more cases in Burma are being treated with the new remedy.

— The French government, fearful of being drawn into war through the course of Russia in seizing British steamships in the Red Sea, has undertaken to persuade Russia to surrender the ships and make reparation to Great Britain. The danger of war over the matter is regarded as very real.

— Famine is feared throughout large districts of southern Russia, owing to a lack of moisture at the planting season and unseasonable frosts. The situation seems to be worse in Bessarabia, where the harvest is said to be almost a complete failure. Many peasants are begging, and there is a great increase in the number of thefts.

— Preliminary to the work of digging the Panama canal, the canal zone is being put in sanitary condition under the direction of Governor Davis and Dr. Gorgas. The work consists of the cleaning up of towns and villages, covering ponds of water with kerosene oil to prevent breeding of mosquitoes, and draining swamps. One hundred thousand yards of wire mosquito-netting will be used to screen the various buildings along the course of the canal.

— Union workmen employed at the government arsenal in Washington recently went on a strike because a non-union man was given employment, and it is expected that President Roosevelt will be called upon to settle the difficulty. This case is regarded as a more important one than that which arose sometime ago in the government printing-office, as it will constitute a precedent for day-laborers in every branch of the government service. Capt. John S. Sewell, of the engineer corps, who is in charge at the arsenal, said he had anticipated trouble of this kind some months ago when the union bricklayers were revising their constitution, as at that time they made it unconstitutional for union and non-union men to work together. As regards the point at issue, Captain Sewell says: “The case is simply this, the constitution of the union is diametrically opposed to the Constitution of the United States. I suggested to the union men that they amend their constitution, as I thought it would be easier than to amend the Constitution of the United States. If the union’s constitution is higher than that of the United States, then they own the country, and the sooner we know it the better.”

— Relations between France and the Vatican are proceeding steadily toward the point of open rupture, which appears now to be at hand. The pope sent word to the bishops of Laval and Dijon to leave France and report in Rome. They failed to comply with the pontifical summons, and he now demands their resignation, and this without reference to the mind of the French government. The latter holds this action to be a violation of the Concordat, and has sent word to the Vatican that if the letters demanding the resignation of the bishops are not recalled, the papal nuncio at Paris will receive his passports, and all relations with the Vatican will be broken off. The pope on his part threatens to put France under the papal interdict, which will stop all Catholic religious services, and bring about what to many Catholic minds would be a terrifying state of affairs. In former times this was a final expedient employed at times by the Roman pontiff to bring refractory governments to terms, and usually proved very effective, the people imagining that they were thus made subject to the wrath and judgments of God. If it is tried in the present case, however, it will probably be found to have largely lost its old-time force.