Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 17, 1903

— The Russian government has appropriated $700,000 to aid starving peasants in the famine districts of Finland.

— The jaw bone and tusk of a mastodon were recently unearthed at Beecher, Ill., thirty-five miles from Chicago.

— Eight Chicago building trades are at present involved in strike disputes. Strikes are being ordered, it is said, in violation of agreements with manufacturers.

— Mount Vesuvius is again in eruption. The description states that the crater is constantly “emitting incandescent masses which explode and make a magnificent spectacle.”

— Four million persons have emigrated from Ireland since 1851, according to a parliamentary report recently issued. This is over half the entire population of that country.

— In order to stop the smoking of cigarettes by girls at the Logansport, Ind., high school, the school faculty has threatened to prosecute any person found selling cigarettes to the pupils.

— A St. Petersburg dispatch states that hundreds of people in the Russian province of Samara perished in a terrible blizzard which prevailed over that country for several days previous to March 9.

— In a note to Secretary Hay, the Argentine government has proposed an addition to the Monroe doctrine, stated as follows: “A public debt can not give rise to an armed intervention, and much less to the territorial occupation of the soil of American nations by any European power.”

— The French Senate has voted an appropriation of $605,000 to be expended in repairing the damage caused by the eruption of Mont Pelee in Martinique.

— Several deaths from cholera are believed to have occurred on the Anchor line steamship “Karamania,” now detained at quarantine in New York harbor, during her voyage from Europe.

— An exploding oil tank at Olean, N. Y., caused by fire following a freight wreck on the Erie Railway, March 9, caused the death of fourteen of the spectators and the serious injury of many others.

— The highest flood known in many years is anticipated from the present rise in the waters of the Mississippi. It is believed, however, that the levees are in good condition, and will hold the flood in check.

— A cyclone which caused several deaths and did great damage to property, leaving many people homeless, is reported in a dispatch from Brisbane, Australia, dated March 10. The village of Townsville was the scene of the disaster.

— A Vienna dispatch reports that a famine prevails in the province of Dalmatia, many of the people being driven to an effort to subsist on bark and wild herbs. A fund for the relief of the stricken district is being organized in the Austrian capital.

— A dispatch from Wellington, New Zealand, states that all the cabinet makers of Auckland have been locked out by their employers because the arbitration board raised their wages. Arbitration is compulsory in New Zealand, but it can not always be relied on to bring peace between employer and employee, as this case testifies.

— “A suicide epidemic” was the phrase used by Coroner Traeger, of Chicago, recently in referring to cases of self-murder in that city. So many cases were reported at the coroner’s office, March 8, that the coroner and his deputies were unable to keep up with their work. Carbolic acid was the means employed in the majority of cases.

— According to views expressed by the Japanese and Chinese ambassadors at London, the insurrection in China is mainly due to excessive taxation caused by China’s effort to raise the indemnity money demanded by the European powers. The Japanese ambassador says the insurrection is anarchical in character, and aims at the overthrow of the reigning Chinese dynasty. His view of the situation is pessimistic.

— A Paris dispatch of March 5 describes an alleged discovery made by Professor Peter Stein which solves the seemingly hopeless problem of restoring sight to the blind. Professor Stein has invented an apparatus which takes the place of the eye, the claim on which his discovery rests being that a person does not see with the eye, but with the brain, the eye serving only to receive the image which the optic nerve transmits to the seat of perception. He claims to have devised a way of transmitting images to the brain without the use of the eye.

— The Melbourne, Australia, correspondent of the London Times states that great excitement has been caused in Methodist religious circles there by the news that Catholic priests at Suva, the capital of the Fiji Islands, burned the Bibles and hymn books of natives of the islands whom the priests had converted from Methodism to Catholicism. The Melbourne and Adelaide Methodist conferences have passed severe condemnatory resolutions regarding the matter.

— A famine in farm help is reported from Illinois. According to a dispatch from the town of Dixon, farmers in that vicinity find it “next to impossible to hire a man to do any kind of farm work at wages higher than have prevailed for a score of years. A good farm man is now commanding twenty-five dollars, his board, washing, the private use of a horse and buggy, and the privilege of operating a riding instead of a walking plow.” Farm life is not popular in this fast, “get rich quick” period of the world’s history.

— On the subject of the prevalence of the use of narcotics, and their effect, Prof. James N. Hyde, of the University of Chicago, recently spoke these forcible words to university students: “Whole nations are breaking down under the use of narcotic poisons. They are not only breaking down through the terrible powers of these poisons, but they are disintegrating. Seventy-five per cent of the crimes which are brought to the attention of the courts are committed by men between the ages of eighteen and twenty while they have been under the influence of narcotic stimulants.”

— There is a bitter contest at Albany, N. Y., between the State board of regents and the department of public instruction over the “unification” of the State schools, which it is said “threatens to develop a religious controversy which will stir the State.” Back of the plan for “unification,” it is asserted, is a purpose to secure for the religious schools a share in the common school funds of the State. It is stated that “from religious publications, principally Catholic and Episcopalian, expressions of opinion on the right of religious or parochial schools to enjoy the benefit of a part of the public funds have been gathered, and it is asserted that they show conclusively that a plan is on foot to bring about that result. The mass of clippings is reinforced by recent utterances of prominent clergymen, among them Archbishop Farley, of New York.” Bishop Doane and the Rev. T. A. Hendrick, who is the Catholic representative on the board of regents, are also chief promoters of this plan to procure State funds for religious uses.

— According to advices sent to the State Department at Washington by Robert W. McWade, United States consul at Canton, an American doctor named Razlag, practising in Canton, has discovered a cure for the hitherto incurable disease of leprosy. Of four pronounced cases of leprosy upon which his treatment was tried, three were to all appearance cured after four months’

under his care. The fourth case was in an advanced stage of the disease, and apparently beyond the reach of any remedy. The treatment makes use of strong antiseptic drugs, combined with the constant use of sea water and exposure to sunshine. It is believed Congress will make an appropriation to aid the physician in the prosecution of his experiments, and perhaps to establish a hospital where leprosy patients may be sent for treatment.

— The supreme court of Pennsylvania gave a decision, February 23, declaring that a belief in spirits is not evidence of insanity. This decision was rendered in a case arising under the will of Alexander McIlroy, who, after bequeathing a competency to his daughter, left the remainder of his estate to an association of spiritualists. The will was contested by the daughter on the ground that her father was insane because of his belief in spirits. The court below set aside the will. The case was appealed to the supreme court by the spiritualists. Justice Potter, in upholding the will, declared that belief in ghosts, spirits, etc., is not proof of insanity.