Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 7, 1904

— Severe earthquake shocks are reported from the province of Daghestan, in the Caucasus.

— There are contradictory reports in Germany concerning a return of Emperor William’s throat trouble.

— Fire Commissioner Hayes, of New York City, has declared that no cigarette smoker need apply for a position in the fire department there. “We want only men whose nerves can stand the strain,” he says.

— Indians who have come south from the Pacific coast north of Quinalt Indian reservation report that a recent earthquake in that region upheaved the beds of four rivers, throwing them out of their course, and forming lakes on adjacent lowlands.

— A backwoods guide in Maine reports that Bald Mountain, a well-known landmark near the New Brunswick border, in the Tibique Valley, has disappeared as a result of the recent New England earthquake, and that a lake now covers the spot where it formerly stood.

— The estimated damage from the recent floods in Indiana is figured at $8,000,000. The floods in Michigan destroyed property to the extent of several millions of dollars, but no exact estimate has been given. There was a loss of eight lives by drowning in the former State.

— An estimate on the remaining work to be done in the construction of the Panama Canal, given to a committee of Congress by Prof. William H. Burr, states that eight or nine years will be the length of time required to complete the canal, 100,000,000 cubic yards of earth remaining to be excavated, 7,000,000 yards being the amount excavated by the French company.

— A report from Berlin, Germany, says: “Excessively large orders of ammunition have been lodged by several governments with all German powder factories. The most important countries mentioned are China, Turkey, and Spain. So great is the demand that work is being carried on at high pressure, and even a powder mill closed for years has been ordered reopened.”

— Some published statistics of recent accidents in the coal-mining industry show that the total number of lives lost in the coal mines of the United States in 1902 was 1,051, as compared with 1,467 in 1901. The total number of men injured was 3,643 in 1901, and 3,438 in 1902. The largest number of lives lost per 1,000 employees in 1902 was in Tennessee, where 200 men were killed by the explosions in the Nelson and Fraterville mines. There has been of late years a steady increase in the price of coal, as shown by the following figures: the average price at the mine for a ton of anthracite coal of 2,000 pounds throughout the United States was $1.41 in 1898, $1.46 in 1899, $1.49 in 1900, $1.67 in 1901, and $1.96 in 1902. This shows an increase of over thirty-nine per cent, but within the last five years. A still larger percentage of increase is shown in the price of bituminous coal throughout the country. A short ton of bituminous coal brought an average price at the mine of 80 cents in 1898, 87 cents in 1899, $1.04 in 1900, $1.05 in 1901, and $1.12 in 1902. This represents an increase of 40 per cent in five years.

— The final step in the suppression of teaching by the Roman Catholic orders in France, was taken by the Chamber of Deputies, March 28. The first law against these religious orders, enacted in 1901, suppressed the unauthorized teaching orders, which had for a long time carried on their vocation despite the lack of legal sanction. The new law does not make any distinction between authorized and unauthorized congregations, but sweeps away the whole fabric of teaching by religious orders, thus in effect substituting the system of state schools for those heretofore conducted by the orders. The bill has yet to pass the French senate before becoming a law, but no serious opposition by that body is anticipated.