News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 20, 1913

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

—Fifteen American missionary societies have organized work in Porto Rico.

—All records for subway traffic were broken recently when, during one day, the New York City subways carried 1,208,626 passengers.

—Federal investigation has revealed the existence of a vice syndicate in New York City, which sells girls and women to Chicago white slave dealers for from twenty-five to thirty dollars each.

—Thousands of dollars’ worth of cotton samples were destroyed February 9 when two large buildings in the city of Washington, D. C., used as storerooms by the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department of Agriculture, were burned to the ground.

—Sixteen persons are dead and a score wounded as the result of battles between striking coal-miners near Mucklow, W. Va., and elsewhere in the Kanawha coal strike district where trouble began last April. State troops have been called out again, and martial law prevails.

—On February 1 Pres. R. T. Miller of the Texas State Agricultural and Mechanical College, expelled 466 of the students of that institution for insubordination. Twenty-seven students had been dismissed for hazing, and the members of the junior, sophomore, and freshman classes demanded that all so dismissed be reinstated, and said they would attend no academic duties until the faculty complied with their demands. The expulsion of the 466 students was the result.

—During a political riot in Tokio, Japan, on February 10, 6 persons were killed and 65 seriously injured. The government finds itself in a critical situation. For some time friction has existed between the premier, Prince Katsura, and the diet of constitutionals and liberals. Recently the last-named body passed a vote expressing lack of confidence in the government. The premier then adjourned the diet for five days. This has resulted in a political upheaval, and the resignation of the premier and ministers of the cabinet is demanded by the people.

—Another crisis has been reached in Mexican affairs. The long-predicted revolt against the present government, which has been smoldering for months, broke out February 9, when the federal troops in Mexico City revolted and freed Felix Diaz from prison. He at once took charge of affairs and led an attack on Madero’s palace, in which 200 persons were killed and about 500 wounded. Though the terrific bombardment continues, and thousands have been killed, each leader seems to be holding his own. President Madero professes confidence in his ability to suppress the revolt. The United States has sent two cruisers and four battle-ships to the scene of trouble. The talk of American intervention is stirring up much feeling on the part of the Mexicans.

—American students have carried off the first and second medals in almost every subject at the great Catholic University de Propaganda Fide at Rome.

—Nineteen persons, twelve passengers and seven members of the crew, were drowned on the morning of February 6, when the schooner “Granada” was wrecked off Greytown, Nicaragua.

—Investigation of police graft conditions in New York City has revealed the fact that more than $5,000,000 is paid by resorts to the officers annually for protection in their unlawful business.

—An apparatus has been devised that, its inventor claims, will provoke disturbances of the air causing any type of aeroplane to capsize, even if it has ascended to a height of more than 9,000 feet.

—The Montenegrin army besieging the Turkish fortress of Scutari carried the great Bardanjoli Hill on the morning of February 10. This victory cost the contending armies 6,500 men in killed and wounded.

—The total population of the world is now estimated at 1,700,000,000. This is based upon the most recent censuses, which all civilized countries now take, with a careful estimate of the number of inhabitants of uncivilized lands.

—The Webb bill to prohibit the interstate shipment of liquor into dry States for purposes of sale “or in any manner used” in violation of State laws was passed by the House of Representatives on February 8, and two days later by the Senate.

—The Senate, on February 1, after a three days’ debate, adopted the resolution to submit to the States an amendment to the Constitution, fixing a six-year Presidential term for the President and Vice-President, and making the President ineligible for a second term. The resolution now goes to the House, where it also must receive a two-thirds vote. If agreed to in that body, it will be submitted to the legislatures of the various States. If three fourths of the States ratify the amendment, it at once becomes a part of the organic law.

—At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society held in London February 10, announcement was made of the disaster which has overtaken Capt. Robert F. Scott’s antarctic expedition, resulting in the death of Captain Scott and four of the sixty-six members of his party. The survivors report that this explorer and his companions reached the south pole and found the hut and records left by Amundsen, but on their return journey to the ship were overtaken by a blizzard, and froze to death before the relief party sent out could reach them.

—Preparations are being made for a fitting celebration in 1914 of the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which will mark a century of peace between America and Great Britain. The British committee’s plans propose the erection of a monument to George Washington, to be placed in Westminster Abbey or in Westminster Hall, adjoining the House of Commons. It is also planned to purchase Sulgrave Manor, the ancestral home of Washington, in Northamptonshire, to serve as a national and international shrine.

—J. P. Morgan has spent a large sum of money in getting together manuscripts which have the signatures of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was fortunate enough to secure them all, and has given the volume to the Congressional Library.

—The centuries-old styles in clothing for both men and women of China have come under the disapproval of the cabinet of the republic, and an edict has been issued calling upon the women to abandon their trousers for the Occidental skirt, and the men to give up their comfortable loose clothes for the sack business and conventional evening clothes of the Caucasian.

—Mr. L. L. Parrish, of New York, has recently visited the island of Kos, in the Ægean Sea. He reports a tree in vigorous condition, which is said to have been planted by Hippocrates, the great physician, who was born on this island in the fifth century before Christ. The tree has a circumference of thirty-six feet, and the large branches, themselves as large as great trees, are supported at different points, fifty feet or more from the trunk, by pillars of stone.