News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 17, 1916

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— James Whitcomb Riley, the far-famed Hoosier poet, died at his home in Indianapolis, Ind., July 22, 1916.

— Severe floods occurred recently in several of the Southern States, especially in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. The property damage, according to the early estimates and including crop losses, will total approximately $10,000,000, while eighty-five persons are dead or missing. In the city of Mobile, Ala., alone, the property loss is estimated at about $1,000,000, while other cities and towns suffered heavily, hundreds of people in the five States having been rendered homeless.

— The ban on the shipment of food and clothing into Mexico has been lifted by the United States government. At the request of the State Department instructions have been sent by the Treasury Department to customs collectors along the border not to interfere with further shipments of these goods into Mexico. The ban on munitions is to be continued, not in the form of an embargo, but by requiring absolute proof that munitions reaching border points are destined for the de facto government.

— The shortage of white paper, which recently caused the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association to urge upon its members the strictest economy, even to the cutting down of margins and the discontinuance of useless extra editions, is now so serious that the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce has just issued a pamphlet with definite instructions as to what kind of materials should be saved, and how it should be assorted. These instructions are printed in the form of a manual for the guidance of small households, apartment houses, small stores, hotels, department stores, office buildings, large printing establishments, and other users of paper.

— In view of the calling out of the militia for federal service, there is much interest in the pay that is given the men by the government. Officers and men are paid as follows: Officers—major general, $666.67; brigadier general, $500; colonel, $333.33; lieutenant colonel, $291.67; major, $250; captain, $200; first lieutenant, $166.67; second lieutenant, $141.67. Enlisted men—first sergeant, $45; quartermaster sergeant, sergeant, cook, horseshoer (cavalry), $30; corporal, wagoner, artificer, farrier, saddler, $21; private, $15. These are monthly rates paid the militia when in federal service, being the regulation army pay proper. Officers receive allowances for quarters, and cavalry officers receive an allowance of $150 a year for one horse; $200 for two.

— Recently 200 fishermen lost their lives in a monsoon off the coast of Colombo, Ceylon.

— President Wilson has accepted in modified form General Carranza’s suggestion that a commission be appointed to decide whether the American troops shall evacuate Mexico, and to settle the difficulties now pending between the two countries.

— Capt. Sally Louisa Tompkins, eighty-three years old, the only woman ever commissioned as an officer in the Confederacy, died recently in the Home for Confederate Women. She was commissioned captain of cavalry in order that she might continue to conduct her private hospital after all other private hospitals were ordered to be closed, about the time of the first battle of Manassas.

— The “Deutschland,” a German submarine freighter, and the first undersea cargo boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean, bade farewell to Baltimore on the afternoon of August 1, and conveyed by the tug “Timmons,” made its dash to sea in safety, so far as known. The U-boat was painted a sea-green, with irregular lines of dirty white across the whaleback, and hence in deep water it is impossible to distinguish her, once she submerges.

— On account of a nation-wide strike of the railway employees of Spain, the government has suspended the constitutional guaranties, and martial law has been proclaimed throughout the country. The city and province of Madrid were declared by the government in a state of siege on July 13. The strike of the railroad employees has disorganized the transportation system of the country, and has resulted in serious disturbances. The strike began on the Northern Railroad on June 11, and has spread not merely to the other railroads of Spain, but to the industries in the great industrial centers of Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao, and Oviedo. The primary cause of the strike was refusal of the Northern Railways Company to increase wages, but there has been a growing unrest, and serious disturbances have occurred in most of the provinces of Spain as a result of the increased cost of food caused by the great war.

— On August 2 a general strike of motormen and conductors in New York City was called by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America, and the six surface rapid-transit lines were tied up, some of the men going out without giving any warning of their intended action. The boast of the union that it could close all surface traffic in Manhattan was made good for several days, but owing to the activity of Mayor Mitchel and Oscar S. Straus. The day following, normal service on all car lines was resumed. Owing to strikes and lockouts more than 100,000 clothing workers in the great metropolis, representing fully 500,000 persons dependent upon the wages paid by the labor industry, are idle. Orders for women’s and men’s clothing, amounting to fully $500,000,000, are waiting to be filled when a settlement between employers and employees can be made.