Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 28, 1902

— Ten persons lost their lives in a fire which destroyed a large glucose factory in Chicago, October 21.

— Portugal, it is announced, will sell her East African possessions, and the latter will be divided between England and Germany.

— The volcano Izalco, in Salvador, is reported to be in a state of violent eruption. Recent eruptions have occurred also from the crater of Soufrière, on St. Vincent.

— Five workmen were crushed by falling steel girders in the Pennsylvania steel works near Harrisburg, Pa., October 2, three of them receiving fatal injuries.

— A decision rendered October 21 in the circuit court at La Crosse, Wis., in the case of a barber who had shaved a man on Sunday, declared Sunday shaving to be contrary to law in that State, on the ground that the act is not a necessity to any individual.

— The forces of the “Mad Mullah” in Somaliland, Africa, recently defeated a native British force in that country, and British interests there are in a critical condition. Re-enforcements from India are being hurried to this threatened section of the empire by Great Britain.

— The question as to whether tuberculosis is transmissible from beasts to human beings, was discussed at an international tuberculosis congress in Berlin, Germany, October 22. The prevailing opinion was against the non-transmissible theory advanced some time ago by Dr. Koch.

— Andrew Carnegie, on the occasion of being installed in the office of “lord rector” of a university at Glasgow, Scotland, made a speech in which he warned Europe that a political and industrial union of European states was necessary to resist the commercial encroachments of the United States.

— Cholera has broken out, and is spreading in Palestine. Gaza, about forty-five miles from Jerusalem, has thus far suffered most from the scourge, having had from thirty to forty deaths daily. The port of Odessa in Russia, has also suffered severely from cholera, and unless the disease abates soon may be entirely closed to trade.

— The king of Sweden, as arbitrator in an international dispute in which Germany claims damages from England and the United States for landing troops in Samoa in 1899, has decided the matter in favor of Germany. The United States will pay the damages awarded in this case, but will not allow the case to be made a precedent.

— The apple crop this year is estimated at 43,000,000 barrels, compared with a crop of 27,000,000 in 1901.

— News from Venezuela regarding the revolution is of an uncertain character, but it seems that President Castro has been able at least to save himself for a time from the overthrow which appeared imminent a few days ago.

— By a vote of the Landsthing, Denmark has decided not to sell the Danish West Indies to the United States. It was known at Washington that this would be Denmark’s probable action in the matter.

— A Hindu “baba,” a religious official connected with a Hindu monastery at Muttra, India, has come to the United States to convert its people to the worship of Krishna. He says there are now about fifty converts to his religion in this country.

— A world’s Sunday-school convention is to be held in Jerusalem in 1904, according to plans of the subcommittee having the matter in charge. Eight hundred delegates will go from the United States. The convention will meet in two large tents outside the city and close to the supposed site of Calvary.

— According to press dispatches from St. Petersburg, a Russian surgeon named Koulapye has succeeded in restoring circulation in the human heart after apparent death. This is accomplished by treating it with saline solutions. It is not yet evident, however, that this discovery is of more than theoretical importance.

— With the settlement of the coal strike and the return of the miners to work, violence has been renewed in the mine regions, the apparent cause being an effort to drive out non-union miners who have taken the place of union men, and to injure the property of companies which have employed non-union men to fill the strikers’ places. October 21, five homes were dynamited, a soldier was shot, non-union men were severely assaulted, and other acts of violence were perpetrated or attempted. It is not possible for all the strikers to again find places in the mines. All who are given places are required to sign a contract not to molest non-union workmen.

— According to figures given by Rev. R. C. Wylie, secretary of the National Reform Association, there are nine States in which the reading of the Bible in schools rests securely on a legal basis, plainly written either in the State constitution or in the school law; twelve States in which, while there is no specific mention of the Bible in the constitution or law, there are decisions of courts and State school superintendents of an unauthoritative character, which give to the custom of Bible reading quite a secure legal status; sixteen States and a Territory in which there are none of the legal safeguards mentioned above, but in which the custom of reading the Bible prevails, supported by long-established usage and public sentiment; three States and a Territory in which the Bible is not read, although there are no legal provisions for or against the custom; and five States and a Territory in which the decisions of courts, attorneys-general, and school superintendents are adverse to the reading of the Bible.