Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 14, 1902

— New York City now leads the world in bank clearings, showing a total of nearly seventy-five billion dollars handled in business transactions for the business year ending September 30 last.

— The qualifications of recruits for the Chinese army, according to the London (England) Standard, are these: The candidate cannot be under twenty or over twenty-five years old; he must be four feet eight inches in height, at least; able to run a course of seven miles in an hour; and also strong enough to lift a hundred-pound weight with both hands to a position level with his chest. In addition to this he will not be accepted if he is not of good character.

— Belated news from Japan reports the loss of 1,500 Japanese fishermen in a typhoon off the Japanese coast last month.

— A decision just rendered by the supreme court of Nebraska, forbids the use of the Bible in the public school exercises of that State, as being contrary to the State constitution.

— John Kensit, a well-known Englishman who has been a leader in the anti-ritualistic movement in England, died October 8 from injuries inflicted by a mob at Birkenhead, some days before.

— The anthracite coal strike is seriously affecting the price of coal in Great Britain. A dealer on the coal exchange in London is quoted as saying that retail coal in that city may soon reach the price of ten dollars a ton.

— Five hundred Porto Rican “emigrants” to the Hawaiian sugar fields have appealed for relief from the cruelties which they suffer at the hands of the sugar planters, who whip and imprison them at their pleasure.

— The revolution in Venezuela is reported to be practically ended, the remaining government troops having agreed to surrender to save further bloodshed. The revolutionists have set a price on President Castro’s head.

— A ruling recently made in the United States circuit court at New York City, in the case of a native woman of Porto Rico who sought entrance to this country, says that the inhabitants of Porto Rico are not citizens of the United States.

— Nonconformist church bodies in England are challenging the government to enact the education bill, which discriminates in favor of the established church, the prospect being that such a step by the government will precipitate a revolt against tax paying.

— A recent test made in Chicago shows, says the Tribune of that city, that of 500 people subjected to the test, 366 showed that they were superstitious; the test being that of willingness to pass under a painter’s ladder, this act being believed to bring “bad luck.”

— A serious strike of street-car motormen prevails in New Orleans, the local police being unable to afford protection to non-union motormen on the cars, or to disperse the mobs that collect around the cars. It may be necessary to obtain help from the State militia.

— Gangs of “ladrones” are making much trouble in some of the smaller islands of the Philippines. The island of Guam, some distance east of the Philippines, has been devastated by a succession of earthquakes. A census of the Filipinos is expected to be completed in May next.

— The Union Signal is authority for the statement that fully 150 Texas editors have entered into a compact with liquor dealers to sell newspaper space for the publication of alleged facts derogatory to the cause of prohibition, allowing the liquor dealers to make any assertions in the matter they may choose.

— A general strike of French coal miners was begun October 9. The miners’ federation in France controls 60,000 out of 162,000 miners. The aim of the strike is to secure some betterment of the conditions under which coal mining in France is carried on.

— Lady Henry Somerset, president of the English W. C. T. U., is quoted as affirming that more women than men are now arrested for intoxication in England, whereas but a quarter as many women as men were arrested for this cause only fifteen years ago.

— The tenth National Irrigation Congress began its session at Colorado Springs, Colo., October 6. The proceeds of government land sales in the arid States are now by act of Congress devoted to the development of systems of irrigation, and this fact has given a great impetus to the movement for which the congress stands.

— The anthracite coal strike which is causing so much trouble is not without its compensations, observes the organ of the W. C. T. U. “The strikers, it is said, from motives of economy and from a sincere desire to make the best showing possible for their cause, patronize the saloons very little, and there is no drunkenness. This feature of the strike is a great source of comfort to the women folk.”

— Mr. H. Gerald Chapin, editor of the American Lawyer, is despondent over the outlook for the lawyer’s calling in this country. The individual lawyer, he says, is being rapidly superseded by various business agencies which look after nearly all legal matters for a smaller price than the individual lawyer could afford to accept, about the only exception being that of the defense of criminals. “Within twenty years,” Mr. Chapin says, “the individual, or general practice, lawyer will be extinct save only in the remoter country districts.”

— The history of the coal strike the past week has been mainly a record of unsuccessful efforts on the part of President Roosevelt and others to end the strike. Both the mine owners and the miners refused to accede to the president’s plea in the matter, and efforts by Senators Quay and Penrose, of Pennsylvania, and Senator Platt and Governor Odell, of New York, to reach a basis for an adjustment of the trouble, were without results. The “coal famine” convention held in Detroit, October 9, which was attended by three hundred delegates from fifty-six municipalities in the United States, adopted resolutions of a radical nature, calling for immediate action by the State of Pennsylvania to condemn sufficient of the coal lands and coal-carrying railways of that State to insure a supply of coal to the public, the mines to be operated by the State; also calling for an investigation of all charters, stock books, and other properties of the coal-carrying roads, by a commission of Congress, to secure information for the use of the State in litigation over the mines; for immediate action by the attorney-general of the United States, in the form of criminal proceedings against the coal trust for violation of the interstate commerce law; and for the appointment by President Roosevelt of a receiver for the coal mines, who, pending action by the State of Pennsylvania, shall operate the mines for the public good.