Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 3, 1903

—Canton, China, is the center of several railway lines which are built or under construction at the present time, the work being in charge of the American China Development Company.

—The revolution in San Domingo has proved successful, an act of capitulation being signed November 24 by President Wos y Gil, who afterward took refuge in the British consulate. A new president is to be chosen on February 27 next.

—The Chicago street-car strike was ended November 25, and the trainmen ordered back to work. The company retains the right to discharge, discipline, and hire its men without interference of the union in any way. Employment is to be open to union and non-union men alike. Other differences were submitted to arbitration.

—Reports of the condition of Emperor William, who recently underwent an operation for the removal of a soft tumor in his throat, are less reassuring than those first received. In spite of the apparently simple nature of the emperor’s affection, it refuses to disappear as readily as it was believed it would, and there is fear that it may assume a malignant form, it being remembered that both the emperor’s parents died of cancer.

—Senor Manotas, of Colombia, has arrived in the United States as an envoy from Colombia to act with six other envoys from that republic in an effort to arrive at some understanding with the government at Washington over the seizure of Panama. The Colombian government has issued orders to raise the army footing to 100,000 men in the event of General Reyes’s mission to Washington proving fruitless. There is talk in Colombia of an invasion of Panama.

—Prohibition has received a severe backset in Texas. The State Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest Texas tribunal, has rendered a decision that practically makes the local option law of the State inoperative. It has declared the law of 1901, which sought to prevent the shipment of liquor in unbroken packages into local option precincts, unconstitutional, and that such sale of liquor is legal. The effect of the decision is to permit individuals, clubs, or other purchasers to have quarts, gallons, or other unbroken packages shipped to them regardless of local option regulations.

—A dispatch from Karachi, India, dated November 16, gives particulars of the contemplated invasion of Tibet by a strong British expedition, which has been ordered to occupy the Chumbi Valley, the key to Tibet, and to advance to a point one hundred and fifty miles distant from Lhassa. The expedition is said to be for the purpose of discussing with Tibetan authorities their non-observance of treaties, which have injured trade between Tibet and India. It is expected the Tibetans will fight, and the latter hope to receive assistance from Russia.

—It is reported from Vienna, on the authority of a Russian nobleman who had returned from visiting his estates near Moscow, that the Russian peasantry and artisans were in a state of dangerous insubordination, and apparently ready for an uprising which will be directed against the Jews and Germans first, and then against the nobles. The people, he said, had a scowling expression, and they were no longer respectful. Many had lost their religion, and nearly all seemed to be filled with the revolutionary spirit. He apprehended extensive massacres of Jews before long.