News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 17, 1913

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— A popular pastime nowadays with Continental aviators would seem to be flying trips by night over England. Daring air pilots in Germany or France leave their moorings at dusk, speed over the channel, and then circle over British cities and forts, flashing their lights to mystify and alarm the people below them. With the first indications of dawn the adventure comes to an end. The prowling birdman heads for home, houses

his machine before the sun is well up, and leaves the officials of England to report his incursion to the war-office in London. Reports of these night visits became so general, and were at the same time so disconcerting, that the government finally took official action and passed a bill prohibiting the passage of air-craft over certain specified areas. Air-craft violating this regulation will be fired on and otherwise warned away.

— The late Gen. William Booth never received a salary or pension from his army. A friend, at the time when the Salvation Army yet bore the title of “Christian Missions,” gave him £5,000, the interest of which he was to use for himself. The general was a very frugal man; he not only lived on that interest, but saved £400, which he bequeathed to the army. The capital was divided among his children.

— The annual report of Postmaster-General Hitchcock tentatively suggests the reduction of parcel-post rates and increasing the limit of weight beyond eleven pounds. It recommends that third and fourth classes of mail be consolidated, so that books and other printed matter may be forwarded by parcel-post. A proposed increase in the second-class rate, he says, would pave the way for the reduction of postal charge on letters to one cent an ounce.

— A new method of mining is being practised in German coal-shafts that is said to do away with dangerous blasting, while also avoiding much of the risk of spontaneous explosion of coal-dust. Deep holes are bored in the coal, and water is introduced into them by pipes under heavy pressure. The water finds its way through the coal fissures and opens them up until the mass is loosened, when it is readily removed while wet, without any dust or the use of any tools other than a light pick and a shovel.

— The German government is building war-ships of an entirely new kind, which will revolutionize naval warfare and send the Dreadnaughts to the junk heap more rapidly than ever. The new ship lies low in the water and fights end on. The only target it presents to the enemy's fire is a bow shield of such a shape and thickness as to be practically impenetrable. It carries a single gun of great power, which is shielded except in the moment of firing. Forty of these ships can be built for the price of one Dreadnaught.

— The yacht “Pennsylvania” has started out on one of the most adventurous voyages of modern times. The yacht is the property of the University of Pennsylvania and is bound for Brazil with a daring party who purpose penetrating to the far reaches of the Amazon and to the headwaters of many of its tributaries. The expedition is taken in the interest of science and humanity. They are out to seek what is known as “the lost world” in the basin of the Amazon. The yacht is in command of Capt. J. C. Rowen, U. S. N., retired, and the expedition is headed by Dr. William C. Larrabee, curator of the American section of the museum of the university. They will be gone about three years, and will penetrate into regions never before visited by white men.