News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 24, 1914

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The Chilean government has announced that it will not exhibit at the Panama Exposition.

— The apple crop in Missouri and northern Arkansas is estimated by railroad men at 3,333 carloads.

— A census bulletin just issued puts the population of the United States at 109,000,000. This is a gain of about 7,000,000 since the last bulletin was issued, four years ago.

— Coleman Livingston Blease, who, as governor of South Carolina, has become notorious from one end of the country to the other by his wholesale pardoning of criminals, was defeated recently in the United States senatorial primaries.

— To what an extent the European war affects this country from a financial standpoint was forcibly demonstrated when President Wilson appeared before Congress on September 4 and advocated the enactment of special emergency legislation to obtain $100,000,000 of additional revenue to replenish the government's income. The war is causing a falling off in collections from import customs duties.

— Warring Europe is in a far better position to feed her soldiers and noncombatants than has been supposed. Famine, if crop conditions continue at anything like normal and England maintains her supremacy on the seas, is an extremely remote possibility. Crop experts believe, and their opinion is backed by American military authorities, that the belligerent countries will make the conservation of their crops a factor of their campaigns second only to the operations of their armies and fleets.

— The centenary of the first woman doctor of medicine has just passed, according to a German paper, which says that in June, 1814, a certain Fraulein Von Siebold, after studying at Goettingen and Darmstadt, obtained her degree and passed the state examination in medicine and surgery. After a successful practice, during which she served several notable persons, this woman physician died in 1859.

— The National House of Representatives recently adopted by vote of 213 to 27 a resolution introduced by majority-leader Underwood ordering absent members back to their duties, and “docking” them for absence except for sickness. The daily compensation of a Congressman is $20.54¼. According to the roll call, 185 of the 433 members are absent from Washington. If these members remain away, the government will save about $3,600 a day.

— On Sunday, August 23, when the battling nations were in the deadliest, fiercest conflict the human mind can imagine, a Swedish-Norwegian monument of peace was being unveiled on the Norwegian frontier near Charlottenberg. The unveiling was marked by simple but beautiful ceremonies. The 10,000 persons who were present were radiantly joyful. Every heart responded to the music. The singing was exultant, and good cheer and good feeling were manifest everywhere. The address on the occasion was delivered by the president of the Storthing, in which satisfaction was expressed over the common neutrality of the countries represented at the unveiling.

— With war raging in Europe and the possibility that this country may become involved, every effort is being made by the military authorities to hurry work on the big guns that are to be placed in the forts guarding the Panama Canal. Most of the heavy firing that is heard in the vicinity of Ft. Hancock, on Sandy Hook, is the result of testing the great guns for the isthmian waterway fortifications. As fast as they are finished, they are hurried to the proving grounds, where they are tried out. At the same time there is unusual activity in all the fortifications about New York harbor. An exceptionally strong guard is being maintained about Sandy Hook since the tests and target practice began, and no one not connected with the army and its work in that branch is permitted on the island.

— News is awaited in England of the safe arrival in the northern city of Golchikha, on the Yenisei River, of an arctic exploring party which embarked at Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, in June under the command of three women. The expedition left Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, with a full equipment for one year's stay in the frozen regions. After going down the Yenisei by steamer, some of the party expected to return by the Kara Sea route, while the remainder will work back along the Yenisei on sledges and foot, living as much as possible among the natives, whom it is the chief purpose of the expedition to study. The chief of the party is Miss M. A. Czaplicka, who holds a traveling fellowship of Somerville College, Oxford, and who is being sent out by the universities of Oxford and Moscow.