Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1909

— The cabinet crisis in Cuba, which for some time had been impending, reached a climax July 29, when the entire cabinet resigned.

— Fifty tons of snuff are used annually in Massachusetts, mostly by the mill girls for dipping. Efforts have been made to check the habit, with little or no improvement.

— Figures for the past year, compiled by the comptroller of the currency, show an increase of $757,668,263 in the banking business of the country over the record of the previous year.

— The International Aerial Navigation Company, with $1,000,000 capital, has been organized in Texas, to establish a freight and passenger air-ship service to all parts of the United States, Mexico, and other countries.

— Carrier-pigeons are now used as photographers. A camera is fastened to a bird's breast, and so arranged that the shutter opens and closes automatically at stated intervals. Eight views on a trip is the largest number yet secured; but the inventor plans to arrange the apparatus so that at least thirty views may be obtained. This idea may prove serviceable in obtaining pictures of beleaguered forts.

— The Department of Commerce and Labor has just issued a bulletin concerning a cloth specially made for those exposed to the sun. Consul-General William H. Michael, of Calcutta, has sent samples of the cloth which is manufactured in India for the use of farmers and others, and writes concerning it. The cloth is called thatcho and shikari. It is made on scientific principles to conform to nature's plan of warding off the sun's rays, as exemplified in the color of the skin and the pigments under the skin.

— Recent information from Louisiana is to the effect that charbon, or anthrax, a deadly and loathsome disease which afflicts cattle, and which has killed thousands of valuable animals in that State, has attacked human beings now, and many men are under treatment. In Leesburg, the county seat of Cameron Parish, eight humans have been stricken. Up to date no deaths have resulted. In mankind the disease is known as malignant pustule. It may be communicated not only by contact with diseased animals or their products, such as hides, etc., but by the bite of a fly that has previously bitten a diseased beast.

— Austria taxes all incomes over $112, the rates ranging from 8 to 20 per cent, according to the size of the income; Prussia, all incomes over 900 marks, rates 1 to 4 per cent; Italy, incomes over $77.20, rates from 4 to 12 per cent; Holland, incomes over $260, rates 2 to 3 1-5 per cent; Switzerland, incomes over $100, rates 1 to 8 per cent; England, incomes over $750, rates 2 per cent and upward. It is claimed by its advocates that the income tax is the only available means of meeting the deficit in the budget for 1910 and 1911. For ten years in Civil War times, we had a tax of 3½ to 10 per cent on incomes over $600; some of the exemptions, however, ranging up to $2,000.

— According to government estimates the forest area in the Philippine Islands is 32,000,000 acres, and the standing timber is worth $6,500,000,000.

— Cancer research will be greatly facilitated by the decision of the trustees of the fund of $1,250,000, left by Henry Barnato to found a hospital in memory of his brother, Barney Barnato, and his cousin, Woolf Joel, to devote that sum to the building and endowing of an institution for cancer patients in London.

— The Egyptian Gazette, published in Alexandria, Egypt, tells of the discovery and deciphering by Professor Brugsch of the hieroglyphic record of the seven years of famine, mentioned in Genesis. The date is 1700 B. C., the exact year mentioned in the Bible. Thus every new discovery routs the so-called Higher Critics, and confirms faith in the old Book.

— In communicating with one another by telegraph and telephone the people of the United States used, in 1908, more than 15,000,000 miles of single wire. Of this total, 12,999,369 miles were used by the telephone companies, while the remainder, 2,072,851 miles, were utilized by the telegraph companies. This length of single wire would encircle the earth at the equator more than six hundred times.

— In the United States there are 126 women who can do plumbing; 786 women can fill teeth and perform other dental operations; 1,041 women can, and do, plan houses; 3,373 make a practise of preaching on Sunday from a pulpit; and 1,010 defend prisoners at the bar. Five hundred forty-five are carpenters, and can drive a nail without pounding their thumbs. There are 167 women masons, 1,365 women work in mines, and 84 are engineers. And, more remarkable still, 193 women are blacksmiths, and 323 women are undertakers.

— From 1669 to 1898 Crete was governed as a Turkish vilayet, except from 1830 to 1840, when it was under the rule of the viceroy of Egypt. In 1898, after years of insurrection in Crete, the powers intervened and made the island an autonomous state, but subject to Turkey, and paying tribute to that government. For the last fifteen years the powers have granted to the king of Greece the right of appointing a high commissioner, and also of appointing the Greek military officials there. In 1908, after Austria's annexation of Bosnia, Crete announced her intention of throwing over Turkish authority altogether. Turkey opposed this, and hence the present trouble.

— In connection with the excavation of the great Roman camp at Caersus, Montgomeryshire, Wales, Professor Bosanquet, who is in charge of the exploring party, has succeeded in opening up the western portion of the camp, unearthing a complete hot-air system situate beneath the floors of the rooms. The floors were supported on a number of stone pillars two feet square and two feet high. Flues were laid beneath to carry the hot air from the furnace, and these have been found in an excellent state of preservation. Outside the huge rampart of clay the workmen have come across trenches which surrounded the camp. The granary has been opened up for its whole length, and measures ninety-three and one-half feet. This building was strongly built, and was roofed with slabs of stone.

— Lord Kitchener states that in India, with the diminution of drinking, the number of courts-martial is reduced one half. There were thirty-two courts-martial at Singapore in 1907, but not one among the abstainers.

— A Congressional Commission sailed from New York last week to make a two-months' thorough study of transit conditions on the rivers and canals of Europe. The commission is headed by Senator Theodore E. Burton, of Ohio, who, for many years previous to his recent election to the Senate, was the chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House.

— The United States census returns show that drunkenness figured as a direct and contributing cause in nineteen per cent of all divorces from 1887 to 1906 in the United States. According to the census figures, liquor was the sole cause of divorce in 13,516 cases; and the cause, in combination with some other, in 17,765 cases. In addition to this, there were 130,287 in which drunkenness was an indirect or contributory cause.

— The fate of the prosperous Punjabi city of Dera Ghazi Khan, which for months past has been gradually slipping into the River Indus, is now regarded as definitely sealed. Nothing can be done to prevent the encroachment of the water. The process of erosion is going on rapidly. From fifty to one hundred feet of the river front are being swept away every day; and one by one, mosques, mansions, and hotels are disappearing in the swift stream.

— According to facts presented by Senator Beveridge in the tariff debate, the tobacco habit has reached worse proportions in the United States than in any other country in the north temperate zone. According to the senator, the per capita consumption is six pounds a year against a per capita consumption of 2.9 pounds in Austria, 2.4 in Hungary, 2.2 in France, 2 pounds in England, and 1.1 pounds in Italy. This means an average annual consumption of nearly seventeen pounds for every male person in the republic over sixteen years of age, but as many such persons do not use tobacco in any form, the average annual consumption for those who do use it must be twenty pounds or over.

— A reminder of the Spanish-American War is found in the payment of $50,000 by Cuba to Spain, this sum being the first instalment of the $300,000 to be paid for the Spanish ordnance left in Cuba by Spain after the evacuation of the island. By the Spanish-American treaty of peace, Spain relinquished her title to Cuba and ceded Porto Rico and other islands to the United States. The treaty provided that all buildings and other immovable property should go with the sovereignty, but that heavy ordnance left in the fortifications in Porto Rico and the Philippines might be purchased by the United States if an agreement as to terms should be reached. Governor Magoon and the provisional government decided to make an agreement to pay Spain $300,000 for the ordnance—$50,000 on July 1, 1909; $100,000 on July 1, 1910; and $150,000 on July 1, 1911. With the restoration of the Cuban republic the agreement was, of course, recognized; and President Gomez has now paid, and the Spanish government has acknowledged receipt of, the first payment.