News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 25, 1916

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— More than $9,200,000 worth of polished diamonds were imported into this country from Holland last year. This amount exceeds the importations of the previous year by over $4,000,000.

— There are 24,922,052 Catholics under the protection of the flag of the United States, according to a new official Catholic directory, which says that 16,564,109 Catholics live in the United States proper, 7,285,458 in the Philippines, and 1,072,485 in Alaska, the Canal Zone, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, and Porto Rico.

— Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, the famous Labrador missionary who has been doing medical service with the British troops at the front in France for three months, is now returning to his accustomed task among the fishermen of the north. Much as his heart has been in his military duty, he feels that he dares not desert his fisher friends during the summer season, when they look so eagerly for his ministering visits in their lonely settlements up and down the coast.

— The centennial of the death of Francis Asbury, known as the “Apostle of American Methodism,” has been celebrated by Methodist churches all over the United States during the past few weeks. When Asbury came to America, in 1771, there were in this country only 316 members of the Methodist Church. At his death, March 31, 1816, the church had grown to a membership of 214,235. His spiritual successors in America now number more than 8,000,000.

— An unusual story of automobile supremacy comes from the Catskill Mountains region of New York State, where three bankrupt railroads have been sold. Owing to the influx of automobiles, these properties brought only a fraction of their cost. They were built for about $560,000, and brought $44,050 at auction. These mountain lines were operated only during the vacation season, and included the Catskill Mountain Railway and the Catskill and Tannersville line.

— May Day, featured in New York City by a monster parade of union workers, was also marked by the beginning of new labor disorders as well as by the settlement of several strikes in the metropolitan district. Approximately 20,000 men are out on strike in Ohio, and as many more in Pittsburgh and its vicinity. It is said that twenty-three centuries of lost time is the record of New York’s strikes and lockouts during the year which ended Sept. 30, 1915, and a money loss of more than $1,000,000.

— Construction work has begun on the great engineering project for flood prevention in the Miami valley, in Ohio, to prevent a repetition of the disastrous floods of 1913, which caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage and claimed several hundred lives. Five mammoth detention basins, large enough to hold back the crest of a flood forty per cent greater than the devastating flood of three years ago, are being erected. The cost of materials will be about $24,000,000. There will be five large dams at crucial points.

— Government statistics available today show that there are more than 8,000,000 women workers in the United States. There are 263,315 stenographers and typewriters, 14,061 women linotype operators, 2,500,846 domestics, 1,800,980 factory and mill girls, 76,508 trained nurses, 111,117 midwives, 2,000,000 women farm laborers, 100,000 women bakers, 8,219 telegraph operators, 88,262 hello girls. Eighty per cent of our teachers are women, also two thirds of our cotton mill workers, one third of our hat, suit, and overall makers, one fifth of our tailors, one third of our shoemakers. Women have been found working before the flaming doors of blast furnaces in Pennsylvania.

— Because the Panama Canal, when it comes into its own with the close of the European war, will refashion the trade routes of the world and lead an endless procession of vessels through waters hitherto unfrequented, the United States government is preparing to go far afield and establish a lighthouse on Navassa Island, a small, rocky islet of the West Indies, west of Haiti. The light will be unique, says the Washington Star, in that it will be the only one maintained by the United States alone on land not a part of its national domain. Congress appropriated $120,000 for the erection of the Navassa light, which will have a beam of 56,000 candlepower, that can be seen for twenty-seven nautical miles.

— Another attempt is to be made by Rodman Wanamaker this summer to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airship. In order to work out his plans, he has formed a corporation, with authority to engage in transatlantic passenger and freight service by means of aeroplanes. It is understood that if the initial attempt meets with success, steps will be taken to inaugurate a regular service. Work on the construction of the new aeroplane will begin immediately at the Curtiss works. It will have three huge wings to support the large boatlike car, from which it will be navigated. Every instrument used in the science of navigation, including wireless telegraphy, will be installed in the machine. The crew will be composed of six men. The first flight is now scheduled for July or August. It is declared that it is feasible to cover the distance in two days.

— One of the most trying tasks incident to trench fighting has been considerably lightened by the appearance in the British trenches of gloves made of a fabric which is said to be impervious to barbed wire points. The fabric is made up into mittens, with the first finger and thumb separate. The fabric is waterproof, and in addition the gloves are insulated for gripping electrically charged wires. The same material is applied to the manufacture of sleeping bags, which, when opened, may be thrown over a barbed wire entanglement to allow a soldier to climb over the sharp points without injury. When made up into vests or tunics, the fabric is strong enough to turn shrapnel splinters, or even a bullet when it has lost part of its momentum. The interlining is antisepticized, so that if a bullet goes through, it takes into the wound enough antiseptic wool to prevent poisoning. The materials used in the manufacture of this remarkable fabric have been sedulously kept secret thus far.