p. 25 | Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 13, 1902

Current Mention

— Four hundred and sixteen persons are reported killed in and around Dacca, India, by a cyclone which swept over that district near the end of April.

— The papal “apostolic delegate” to the United States, Cardinal Martinelli, has been recalled to Rome. Mgr. Falconio, the papal delegate to Canada, is announced as his successor.

— Archbishop Corrigan, the leading Catholic prelate in New York City, died at his home, May 5, of pneumonia. Other deaths of the week include Bret Harte, the novelist, and Rear-Admiral Sampson of the U. S. Navy.

— The naval bill now before Congress calls for the building of four ships larger than any now in the American navy, two battle ships of about 16,000 tons each, and two armored cruisers of 14,500 tons each, and two gunboats. The estimated cost of the six vessels is $19,500,000.

— A recent press dispatch from Berlin comments on the efficacy of the serum treatment for diphtheria, as shown by statistics gathered in that city. The annual death rate from this malady has been reduced to less than five hundred, which is hardly one quarter of the rate which prevailed before the serum treatment was introduced.

— News of what seems to be one of the greatest calamities ever caused by convulsions of nature, comes by the morning papers of May 9. St. Pierre, the principal city of Martinique, an island in the French West Indies, is reported to have been totally destroyed by a volcanic eruption or by earthquakes, or both, the exact cause not being known here at this writing. The city contained 25,000 inhabitants, nearly all of whom are thought to have been killed. Every vessel in the harbor, which was crowded with shipping, was either destroyed or badly damaged. News from the scene of the disaster was brought by steamer. It is probable that adjacent islands have also suffered, and how great the damage and loss of life may be can only be conjectured. The submarine cable to Martinique suddenly ceased working on May 7, which is the probable date of the catastrophe.

— “There are gloomy prophecies as to the outlook in India,” says a dispatch dated at London, May 3. “Both the plague and the famine,” it continues, “appear to be worse than ever, and the unfortunate country is threatened with even greater horrors than during the recent famine and disease. The plague has now spread over upper India in an alarming manner, and is peculiarly virulent in the Punjab. Efforts in the earlier stages to stamp it out by measures involving coercion were entirely ineffectual, besides rousing popular discontent, which threatened to become so serious that the supreme government was forced to interfere with the local authorities.”

— A bill to prohibit all kinds of games on Sunday in the District of Columbia was introduced in the Senate at Washington, May 1, by Senator Dillingham, of Vermont, and in the House at the same time by Representative Allen, of Maine. The opinion is expressed at the capital that the bill is not likely to pass, on account of the enthusiasm for golf shown by senators, representatives, cabinet officers, justices of the Supreme Court, and other influential men. The reappearance of this District Sunday bill, after repeated attempts to get through Congress some years ago, shows the persistence of the parties who are bent on getting Congress committed to Sunday legislation and the union of church and state. This latest effort will certainly bear watching.

— The topic of chief interest in Congress the past week has been the situation in the Philippine Archipelago and the duty of the government in the matter, in view of the methods of warfare adopted by some commanders of the American forces. It is admitted that General Jacob Smith gave orders to a force sent to subjugate the island of Samar, to “kill and burn,” to make Samar “a howling wilderness,” and to shoot all males over ten years of age, whether armed or not. General Smith is being tried by court martial at Manila for his conduct in this respect, and is being vigorously defended, not only before the court, but by the Army and Navy Journal in this country, by senators in Congress, and by leading newspapers. This justification of the action of American commanders in copying the barbarities of the savage people they were sent to civilize, is perhaps the most significant feature of the present aspect of the Philippine problem. The language of Jacob Schurman, president of Cornell University and president of the first Philippine commission, is pertinent: “Most truly was it said in 1898 that the question was not, What shall we do with the Philippines? but, What shall the Philippines do with us? This question we are now seeing answered. On the other side of the globe, irritated by a bad climate, confronted by great difficulties, and exposed to great temptations without the home restraints that keep men steady, galled and exasperated by the machinations of an elusive foe, whose color and stature make it impossible for the Anglo-Saxon to treat him with respect, some Americans at least have been guilty of conduct which evokes the horror and detestation of mankind. But if . . . our hearts quiver with moral indignation, let the bolt strike not only the unhappy individuals, but the system and policy of which they have been the victims.”

— From indications which appear in Japan, China, and other Asiatic countries, the belief seems justified that the whole world is destined to adopt the Roman alphabet.

— According to the latest reports from Russia, it appears that one of the chief causes of the rioting in the southern provinces was a bogus proclamation purporting to come from the czar, abolishing serfdom, and directing the peasants to confiscate the lands of the nobles and divide them among themselves. The circulation of this pretended royal ukase among the peasants is ascribed to the revolutionary propaganda now so active in that country.

— An international conference on the subject of wireless telegraphy, is being discussed as a probable necessity of advancing science and commercial conditions which such a means of communication must naturally affect. The New York Sun believes that “it is a subject of the first importance, with the certainty of tremendous conflict over patents and the possibility of perplexing international complications. So an international conference, sooner or later, is pretty clearly indicated.”