News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 23, 1911

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

—Eight cadets at West Point were found to have smuggled liquors into their quarters, and to have become intoxicated upon them. They were tried and dismissed from the service. President Taft confirmed the sentence dismissing four of them, and commuted the sentence of the other four, who are to suffer some kind of humiliation as a punishment.

—In a résumé of the ethnological losses caused by the fire in the State Capitol at Albany, N. Y., last spring, the American Anthropologist notes the curious fact that almost the only articles that escaped injury were those having a religious significance. The medicine masks and other paraphernalia of the Indians’ religious rites were uninjured, while the rest of the valuable collection was almost totally destroyed. In another age this might have been considered significant; now it is only a freak of the fire-fiend.

—The government brought suit against the United States Steel Corporation in the federal circuit court at Trenton, N. J., on October 26. J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie are among the eighteen individual defendants in the suit. The court is asked to say that all the defendants are violating the law; to restrain them perpetually by injunction; to order a dissolution of the company, its constituent companies, and the companies of which they were made; to declare the ore lease illegal, and to cancel it.

—This year’s apple crop is about 30,000,000 barrels. It exceeds last year’s by twenty per cent. One sixth of it is in the State of New York.

—The Greek steamer “Lord Byron,” from Theodosia for Antwerp, foundered in the English Channel during the gale on November 6. Twenty-two of the crew of twenty-five were lost.

—Almost a million divorces were granted in the United States between 1887 and 1906. Last year there were 72,062 divorces as against 13,180 in France, which has the next largest number.

—At a meeting of the members of the Philadelphia Hotel Association November 8, the members who are the managers of the leading hotels of the city agreed to act in conjunction to do away with the “tipping” system.

—More than a score of deaths, several million dollars’ property loss, and much suffering and inconvenience resulted from the sudden fall of temperature through the central portion of the United States, November 11, 12. In many places severe storms accompanied this cold wave.

—The death roll of aviation for 1911 promises to be of shocking length. Including the tragedy at Macon, Ga., when Eugene Ely volplaned to death in a brilliant flight at the State fair, thus far since the first of January sixty-five persons have been killed, as aviators or passengers or as spectators watching flights.

—President Taft returned to Washington November 12, having completed his trip across the country. He has visited Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois again, and Pennsylvania. The journey covered about 13,000 miles.

—The union between the Free Baptists and the regular Baptists of the Northern States, which has been under discussion and negotiation, has been effected. The Free Baptists numbered 80,000. Hereafter, they will support the missionary and other work which has been maintained by the Baptists. The separation thus ended began in 1780, and grew out of doctrinal differences.

—On November 13, Secretary of State Knox received $966,000 from the government of Chile in settlement of the long-standing Alsop claim. At the time of the treaty of peace between Bolivia and Chile, the mining territory which this company controlled was ceded to Chile, with the understanding that she settle all outstanding claims with the firm. This she tried to evade, and a payment has just been forced.

—Complete agreements between the telegraph operators and officials of the Southern Railway and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, by which the employees of the former will receive an increase of twelve per cent in salary, and those of the latter will be given a six-per-cent increase, were reached recently. Shorter working hours and other concessions were also granted the men. The agreement will cost the Southern Railway approximately $120,000 more annually. The signing of the agreement ends negotiations that have been pending for several months.

—The schooner “Edith E. Dennis” was sunk off Fort Terry, N. Y., November 13. Four persons were drowned.

—In the recent contest for the world’s baseball championship, on each team one of the most skilful players was a full-blooded American Indian.

—It is said that 2,500 daily newspapers are published in the United States, 1,500 in Germany, and only 250 in Great Britain. Japan has 400 dailies, one of them with a circulation of 400,000.

—The streets of New York have become so littered with piles of garbage as the result of the street cleaners’ strike, that Street Cleaning Commissioner Edwards has begun the use of disinfectants.

—Tolstoi’s estate, which would have been divided among the peasants living thereon if the owner’s wishes had been carried out, is, it is reported, to be sold for the benefit of his family. It is urged that the house be bought by subscription, and kept as a memorial of the novelist.

—Recent reports say that the whole Persian cabinet, together with the regent, has resigned. This action follows the presentation by Russia of an ultimatum demanding an apology and reparation for insults to her consular officers, in connection with the confiscation of the property of the premier.

—“The bank deposits of Butler County, Kansas, show more money per capita than any other agricultural county in the State,” says a newspaper despatch. The reason assigned is that the Kafir corn, which is largely raised in this country, withstood the drought of last summer, while other crops failed.

—The Mormon Tabernacle Choir of Salt Lake City, Utah, is to make a tour of the country. This is said to be one of the largest musical organizations in the world, comprising six hundred members. The choir’s repertoire will include grand opera selections, oratorio, part songs, and some “characteristic Utah pieces.”

—English meteorologists have to go back in their records for seventy years to find a summer with as high an average temperature—namely, a fraction over sixty-six degrees—as that of 1911. The hottest day of last summer, August 9, when the thermometer registered 100° at Greenwich, has also had no parallel since the summer of 1841.

—A new naval training station is to be established at Lake Bluff, on Lake Michigan, a few miles from Chicago. Secretary Meyer is reported as saying of it: “This naval training station will be the finest in the world. I believe that when the station is in full operation, seventy-five per cent of the men joining the navy will enlist from the Middle West.”

—Not more than 60,000 of the 4,000,000 books in the British Museum are in common use, the museum’s chief librarian is reported as saying. Only occasionally is one of the other 3,940,000 books asked for by a delver in forgotten lore. “Acres and acres of books here are uncut,” says the librarian, “and have never left their shelves since they were placed on them.” And yet in the future any one of these forgotten books may prove to some special student to be of priceless value.

—At the recent International Prohibition Conference held at The Hague, Holland, thirty-nine countries were represented. The reports were of the growth of temperance sentiment and the enactment of prohibition legislation. The conference unanimously agreed on a memorial, addressed to all governments, asking for suppression of the liquor traffic, and proposing an international convention.

—A new archeological expedition has left England for Jerusalem, to continue the work on the site of ancient Zion, with a view to discovering the birthplaces of David and Solomon. Captain Parker, brother of the earl of Morley, is in charge, and has taken with him some English laborers, who will resume the work in the underground passages on Mount Ophel, a cabbage garden which now supplies Jerusalem with vegetables, and is supposed to be the site of the ancient Zion.

—Vigorous efforts to stay the ravages of the chestnut bark disease, which already has destroyed $25,000,000 worth of valuable timber in the Eastern States, are to be made by the Department of Agriculture. Dr. Haven Metcalf, in charge of the work, is taking the question up with the authorities. At a conservative estimate, the chestnut stand of the country is worth between $300,000,000 and $400,000,000; and as the disease spreads rapidly, it will mean a great economic loss to the country if we can not check the infection.

—While American missionaries are traveling to the ends of the earth to make converts to Christianity, an insidious “heathen” propaganda, so it is claimed, is undermining our spiritual health. Mabel Potter Daggett, who, in the Hampton Columbian Magazine, writes at length of this heathen invasion, finds that women are its chief victims. “Eve,” she says, “is eating the apple again.” She continues: “Yoga, that Eastern philosophy the emblem of which is the coiled serpent, is being widely disseminated here. And before a charm that seemingly they can not resist, thousands of converts are yielding to the temptation to embrace its teachings of strange mysteries.”

—After an agitation of several years, the women teachers of New York have at last won their fight for equal pay for both sexes in the public schools. This will add $3,500,000 to the annual metropolitan budget. The bill for equal pay has passed the State legislature several times, but until now has invariably been vetoed. In some New York school grades, the women teachers already have equal pay with the men, and there are many large cities throughout the country where uniform compensation for both sexes is the rule. The increase to the New York taxpayers will be four mills on the dollar. While the result of the campaign will be to give higher pay to the women teachers now in commission, it will probably be the means of opening the way for the appointment of a larger number of men teachers, who will be chosen for certain grades the more readily that pay will now be equal for both sexes. In other words, it will now be a question of absolute fitness in deciding appointments, instead of being one largely of economy or favoritism as formerly.

—Dr. Wu Ting Fang, ex-minister of China to the United States, is writing a book on his impressions of this country, especially American women. The completion of the book is said to be held up by Dr. Wu’s present efforts to secure foreign recognition of the revolutionists. He has already signed a contract to have the book published by an American company. Dr. Wu declares that the American women are astoundingly clever and beautiful, but that they are no more free than other women. Corsets, he says, are as bad as the tiny shoes of the Chinese women. While he finds America a great nation, he thinks that many of its social customs are outlandish.

—A shipment of specimens from the National Zoological Gardens of the Argentine Republic, at Buenos Aires, was received at the Washington Zoo last week. Two half-grown tapirs, of a species that is fast disappearing, are the stars of the new troupe of arrivals. The male, only one year old, weighs almost 500 pounds. Two handsome coypous were also in the shipment. They very much resemble the muskrat that abounds in this country. A pair of owls also arrived. These birds are about twice the size of the American owl, and their feathers are of a deeper and prettier brown than those of their American cousins. A stork, four feet high, of a species that is almost extinct in South America, was also sent. The shipment was completed by two agoutis, a branch of the rabbit family.

—Miss Margaret Kelly, a woman thirty-five years of age, is to-day in actual charge of the manufacture of coins of the United States, having been made examiner of mints, and being in actual charge, in the absence of Director Roberts, of the money-making institutions of the United States. She is the highest-paid woman in the employ of the United States, her salary being $3,000 a year. She received $2,250 as chief clerk of the Bureau, from which position she was promoted. Beginning as a stenographer, she has occupied almost every position in the Bureau, and “is acknowledged to be the greatest authority in the country on mints, excepting only Director Roberts, her chief.” The next highest-paid woman on the government pay-roll receives $2,500.

—The Canadian census figures show a total population of 7,081,869. In 1901 the population was 5,371,315. The population of certain cities and their gains are as follows:—

	TOTAL	GAIN
Montreal	466,197	198,467
Quebec	78,067	9,227
Toronto	356,240	167,200
Winnipeg	135,430	93,090
Vancouver	100,333	73,323
Victoria	31,620	10,084
Edmonton	24,882	22,256
Regina	30,210	27,961
Saskatoon	12,002	11,889
Moosejaw	13,824	12,266
Ottawa	86,340	26,412

The parliamentary representation of the West will now be increased; that of the East reduced. The basis of representation will henceforth be one seat to 30,000 population, instead of 25,000. Even so, eleven new seats will be added, bringing the membership of the Dominion Parliament up to 232.

—For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, according to the official figures issued by United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue, R. E. Cabell, the consumption of distilled spirits was 134,600,193 gallons; the consumption of beer during the same period was 1,952,722,381 gallons. These totals represent an increase of over 8,000,000 gallons of whisky and of over 113,000,000 gallons of beer over the figures of 1910, and break all existing records for liquor sales in this country. The combined increase is 121,049,823 gallons, which represents an increase of 1.3 gallons per capita, making the total per capita consumption of liquors to-day 22.29 gallons. The highest previous consumption of distilled spirits was for the year 1907.

—The United States is the world’s greatest cotton producer, the estimate for the last season being 10,155,000 bales of 500 pounds each; India, 4,186,000 bales; China, 1,200,000 bales; Egypt, 970,000 bales; Russia (Asiatic provinces), 768,000 bales; Mexico, 125,000 bales; and miscellaneous, including Brazil, Peru, Persia, Turkey, and other countries, 645,000 bales; making the total world crop for the season of 1909–10, 18,049,000 bales. Of the product of China, 200,000 bales are now annually exported to Japan. Of the cotton crop of India, slightly less than one half is exported. Of the Egyptian cotton, practically all is exported, going chiefly to Europe and the United States, its long staple and silky luster rendering it especially valuable for use in conjunction with the shorter-stapled cotton of other parts of the world. The value of raw cotton imported into the United States during the year 1910 was, in round terms, about $15,000,000, of which $10,000,000 worth came direct from Egypt, $2,000,000 from the United Kingdom (presumably also chiefly from Egypt), nearly $1,000,000 worth from Peru, and $750,000 from China.