Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 3, 1907

— Unprecedented rains in the province of Andalucia, Spain, have caused great destruction of property, and 166 persons have been drowned.

— A cyclone struck a crowded grand stand near Pottsville, Pa., during a ball game, September 21, and sixty-four persons were injured, seven of them fatally.

— A defective rail on the Southern Railway near Oak Ridge, Va., caused the wreck of a Pullman and two day coaches September 21, in which thirty-eight passengers were injured.

— During the gale that swept the coast of Newfoundland September 19 seventy-five fishing vessels were wrecked, and sixteen men are known to have been drowned, while eight others are still missing.

— Seventy-seven Japanese miners who arrived at Atlin, British Columbia, September 20, were escorted by 300 white miners back to the steamer which landed them, and warned not to return lest they be driven out by force.

— A break in the Pacific cable occurred September 20, thought to be occasioned by a subterranean earthquake. The break has not yet been repaired, and meanwhile messages for the Orient are being sent by way of the Atlantic.

— All the dormitories connected with the institutions of higher education in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, have been closed because of the many recent discoveries of revolutionary literature and arms concealed by the students in their rooms.

— The rear coach of a special train bearing 150 passengers from Paris to Cherbourg, to embark on the White Star liner “Adriatic” for New York, was telescoped by the regular Rouen express at the mouth of the Breval tunnel September 25. Twenty-seven persons were injured, but no one was killed.

— It is reported from St. Petersburg that a treaty is being negotiated between the United States and Russia for the exchange of a coaling station near Vladivostok for one near Manila. Russia is also said to be trying to obtain from some South or Central American country a coaling station near the entrance of the Panama Canal.

— Word has been received from the commanding officer of a fleet of revenue cutters that on September 16 he had transferred to the cutter “Thetis” 243 persons of the ship “John Currier,” which was wrecked August 9 on Unimak Island, Behring Sea. The rescue was timely, as the food-supply saved from the “Currier” was getting short, and the place where the wreck occurred was a barren shore.

— Hostilities in Casablanca are at an end. The delegates of the three most important tribes accepted the overtures of the French on September 23. The terms are entirely satisfactory to the Europeans, and include, among other things, that indemnity shall be paid for the outrages of July 30, as well as the surrender of those responsible for them. To insure the carrying out of the convention, two notables of each tribe will be given up as hostages.

— Simultaneously on September 21, President Roosevelt and President Diaz addressed invitations to the executives of the five Central American republics, inviting them to send delegates to a conference to be held in Washington, D. C., sometime between November 1 and 15 next, to agree upon a plan for the peaceable settlement of all future disputes between those countries. The invitations recite practically the language of the protocol recently signed by the ministers of those republics to the United States.

— According to the Russian police report for August there were during that month 309 assassinations, of which 107 were government officials. In encounters with police 173 persons were wounded; 31 persons were condemned to death. A Russian statistician has calculated the losses due to the revolutionary movement to be 47,020, of whom 19,144 were killed. It is further shown that 2,381 sentences of death were carried out, that 1,350 prisoners committed suicide, and that 21,405 persons were wounded. The largest loss of life, 12,953, resulted from encounters with the soldiers or police. The anti-Jewish riots numbered 7,962, and there were 4,540 anti-Armenian riots, and 2,193 mutinies. The agrarian disorders were comparatively insignificant, only 533. The revolutionists assassinated 83 generals or governors, 61 prefects, and 8,079 officials of various ranks.

— The Anglo-Russian convention which regulates the respective interests of Great Britain and Russia, in Tibet, Afghanistan, and Persia, was ratified in St. Petersburg, September 23. In Persia, Russia maintains her position in the north and Great Britain in the south. The other governments interested in Persia have been assured that the convention does not threaten the integrity of the country, and does not interfere with the vested interests of any one. Russia has already taken advantage of the free hand given her, and has conveyed a direct threat to the national assembly at Teheran of a Russian occupation of North Persia, if the Persian authorities are unable to put down the state of anarchy existing in the districts adjoining Russian territory. The convention guarantees the maintenance of the present position of Tibet and Afghanistan, each of the contracting powers agreeing not to seek any advantages in these fields which might be to the disadvantage of the other.