p. 661 | NEWS AND NOTES by A. J. B.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 8, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 41.

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NEWS AND NOTES

By A. J. B.

Leading Events of Week Ending October 5.

— Lord Kitchener asks for 25,000 more troops.

— Marquis Ito, of Japan, has arrived in this country.

— The war in South Africa costs England $20,000,000 a month.

— Brazil declares the city of Rio Janeiro to be afflicted with bubonic plague.

— The steel trust reports that its earnings were larger during the recent strike than in busier months.

— If the South African rebellion continues to spread, Cape Colony will soon have to be put under martial law.

— The Bulgarian brigands now threaten to kill Miss Stone unless her ransom money ($110,000) is paid forthwith.

— The directors of the American Locomobile Company decide to spend $1,250,000 in enlarging the company's plants.

— Governor Odell, of New York, has received two letters asking him to commute Czolgosz's sentence to life imprisonment.

— Police Commissioner Murphy, of New York City, declares anarchistic Dr. Parkhurst's sermon delivered the 29th ult.

— During the recent Boer attack on Fort Itala, the British lost 12 killed, 43 wounded, and 63 missing. The Boers lost 19.

— It is said that the proposition to change the name of the Philippines to the McKinley Islands "finds favor at Washington."

— A courier just arrived at Jerba Island reports a battle between French troops and the Tauregs, in the Damergu district of Africa.

— Dispatches state that the Chinese authorities at Peking have "refused to recognize the government at Tientsin set up by the Powers."

— Justice White, of the Supreme Court, Buffalo, N. Y., has sentenced Leon Czolgosz to be electrocuted during the week beginning October 28.

— The Russian Minister of the Interior states that "owing to a famine, the inhabitants of nineteen provinces will have to be fed by the government."

— The university and college students of the country are once more engaged in hazing and class "rushes." Some have already been seriously injured in these brutal scrimmages.

— Lord Kitchener reports a British loss of 33 killed, 88 wounded, and 40 missing, in the battle with the Boers at Moedwill. The English were attacked in the night by 1,000 Boers.

— Twenty thousand Cubans marched to the residence of Governor Wood, in Havana, and requested him to present "a memorial to President Roosevelt, asking a reduction in the American duties on Cuban sugar and tobacco."

— The United States has just sent a battalion of the Seventh and Twenty-sixth regiments, and three gunboats, to the Island of Samar, P. I., to punish the rebels for their recent massacre of Company C of the Ninth Regiment.

— President Roosevelt is planning to make such changes in the United States army and navy as shall increase their efficiency, and make them the best in the world. Large military camps and long marches are a part of his scheme.

— The sum of $50,000 has just been recovered from the hulk of a submerged boat in East Bay, Lake Champlain. It was intended for the payment of Burgoyne's army 125 years ago, but was "sunk to prevent falling into the hands of the Americans."

— The first three races of the five proposed in the contest for the "America's" cup, between the yachts "Columbia" and "Shamrock II" were won by the "Columbia" on September 28, October 3 and 4. The cup thus remains on this side of the water. This "cup of all nations" was won in a race around the Isle of Wight, in 1851, by the yacht "America," eighteen yachts competing. The New York Yacht Club has kept it ever since.

— The Schley inquiry will cost this country $300,000.

— Count von Zeppelin, the balloonist, is still experimenting with his air-ship on Lake Constance, Switzerland.

— A national organization has been formed in Milwaukee, Wis., called "The American Patriotic Educational League." Its purpose is to clear the country of anarchists.

— The city of Stockholm pays a bounty for every rat tail brought to the proper authorities. Rats are supposed to be the cause of the spreading of the plague and other diseases.

— As is their custom, the Boers released the British they recently captured near Scheeper's Nek. Lord Kitchener reports that two companies of Boers, with many wagons, have been captured.

— A brisk trade is now going on between this country and Spain. The United States exports to Spain during the fiscal year just ended showed an increase of $6,000,000 over those of 1899.

— According to the Liverpool Post "an American firm has agreed to deliver 2,000,000 watches in London during the next twelve months." The American firm outbid the Germans and Swiss, and this is said to be "the greatest order of its kind ever given."

— Governor Otero, of New Mexico, has issued a call for a convention to be held at Albuquerque, October 15, "to promote the Territory's claim to Statehood." He believes there are at least 260,000 people now living in New Mexico, the late census to the contrary notwithstanding.

— The Paris Matin pretends to foresee "the day when the seal of the British government will be transferred from Great Britain to Australia, as a purely Anglo-Saxon country which is central for Canada, the Cape, and India, and safer from a military point of view than London." What next?

— A Boston dispatch, dated the 27th ult., states that the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions "will resist the demand for $112,500 ransom for the release of Miss Helen M. Stone, of Chelsea, Mass., the American missionary now held by Bulgarian brigands." The payment of this ransom would establish a bad precedent.

— A Roman Catholic bishop of Burlington, Vt., announces that "parents sending children under ten years of age to the public schools instead of the parochial school, would be refused absolution; that Romanists who are married by Protestant ministers would be excommunicated, and that those who are married by a justice of the peace or a notary public would also be refused absolution."

— Commenting upon the importation of American locomotives into Spain, the British consul at Bilbao states that "all the orders were at first offered to British firms, but went to America, owing to the quickness of delivery guaranteed by the American firms, and also because the price was lower than that asked by the English." The consul also admits the superiority of the American locomotives, for Spanish railroads.

— It is stated that the reason why anarchists have not been watched more strictly in this country is because the Secret Service Department has lacked the necessary funds. On account of this, "an effort will be made at the next session of Congress to secure larger appropriations for this purpose." But may the day never come when the United States shall be as overrun with secret spies as is Russia or some of the other European countries.

— Not being able to come to an agreement with the officials of the Southern Pacific Railroad in regard to rates, Phelps, Dodge and Company, of New York, owners of copper mines in Arizona, have begun to build a railroad of their own, which will be over 250 miles in length, and will cost them over $7,000,000. It will run from Morenci, Ariz., to El Paso, Tex., via Deming, following the Mexican border. For years past this company had given to the Southern Pacific nearly half of its Arizona business.

— A London dispatch dated the 21st inst. states that "the anxiety with regard to the situation in South Africa is intensified by Lord Kitchener's latest message announcing the loss of two or more British guns. The war is certainly not over, and even some of the Unionist papers are blaming the government for the manner in which the country has been deluded into the belief that the Boers were at the end of their resources." The two guns referred to were captured from the Royal Horse Artillery, at Vlakfontein, Lieutenant Barry being killed.

— During the past year the United States exported 3,330,890,448 pounds of cotton, the number of bales shipped being "nearly a million in excess of that of any other year," in spite of the fact that "American shipments of cotton to China (one of our best customers) have amounted to very little since the ‘Boxer’ troubles began."

— Columbia University recently received an anonymous gift of $100,000, to endow a chair of Chinese language and literature. It was accompanied with the following words: "For fifty years or more I have refrained from whisky and tobacco, and inclose you a check, which represents the interest on my earnings."

— A dispatch from Paris to the London Times intimates that "the religious orders which are quitting France are finding less cordial welcome-abroad than they anticipated. The Belgian bishops are imposing restrictions almost amounting to veto, and the Italian government talks of taking precautions against the associations. Some of the Swiss cantons prohibit foreign communities, and Germany threatens to do likewise."

— The United States Patent Office has been in existence 111 years. In order to enlighten the public in regard to its work, the Commissioner of Patents has authorized the publication of "a complete history of the Patent Office, with useful miscellany." Some of its chapters will contain "a discussion of mediæval monopolies, and will show how they differ from the present patents," and "besides narrating the history of patents in the United States, the work will describe the organization and administration of the Office, discuss the aims and advantages of the present system, compare that system with the methods followed in foreign countries, and briefly analyze our present laws." It is thought that this history will be ready for distribution at the opening of the St. Louis Exposition of 1903. A. J. B.