— The British cruiser “Tribune” receives orders to proceed to Colon.
— Argentine Republic troops are said to have invaded Chilean territory.
— The famine conditions in Russian provinces are “worse than first reported.”
— Colombia notifies the United States of its inability to protect isthmian traffic.
— Rebels defeat the government troops under General Alban in a battle near Panama.
— The London Spectator urges the indorsement of the Monroe Doctrine by the British government.
— Venezuela and Colombia agree to a three weeks’ armistice because of heavy rains. May the rains continue.
— The President’s message to Congress was approved by the Cabinet the 19th inst. The document consists of 25,000 words.
— Seven were killed and thirty seriously wounded at Athens, Greece, the 21st, “in fights between Greek troops and citizens,” students leading the mob.
— London dispatches of the 23d inst. state that “German hostility since the Boer war opened inclines the British to favor closer relationship with the French.”
— Newspapers state that the peace party in England is growing rapidly, and that powerful interests are “bringing pressure to bear on the Cabinet to end the Boer war.”
— President Castro, of Venezuela, discovers a plot to overthrow the government, and causes the arrest of Ramon Guerre, Minister of War, together with many of Guerre’s friends.
— American troops landed at Colon the 20th inst. “to prevent interference with traffic across the isthmus.” The rebels captured the city the same day, taking the Colombian forces by surprise.
— Fire destroyed the bullion tunnel of the Smuggler-Union gold mine, Telluride, Colo., the 20th inst., shutting off the escape of two hundred miners. Thirty are known to be dead, twenty-three bodies having been taken out the 21st inst.
— On the 18th inst. there was signed at Washington, D. C., “a new treaty between Great Britain and the United States relative to the Nicaraguan Canal, the draft of which was delivered by Secretary Hay to the British ambassador last May.”
— A dispatch from Los Angeles, Cal., dated the 20th inst., states that “the Santa Fé limited trains, east and west bound, met in a head-on collision near Franconia, Ariz., at 5:15 this morning. Seven trainmen were killed, three passengers and fourteen trainmen injured.”
— Dispatches state that on the 19th inst. the city of Colon, Colombia, was “captured by the insurgent forces, after a short fight in which some fifteen men were killed and forty wounded.” The same dispatch also reports “the landing from the United States gunboat ‘Machias,’ of one hundred marines to guard the isthmus railroad station.”
— In a speech on “Our Diplomacy,” delivered at the 133d annual banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the 19th inst., Secretary Hay said, among other things: “The briefest expression of our rule of conduct is perhaps the Monroe Doctrine and the golden rule. With this simple chart we can hardly go far wrong.”
— An Augusta, Me., dispatch of the 18th inst. states that “up to date twelve persons have been mistaken for deer and shot by careless hunters. Five of the men are dead.” If more persons would read and circulate that most excellent book of true animal stories, “Wild Animals I Have Known,” by Ernest Seton-Thompson, the large number of those whose delight it is to shoot innocent animals would be greatly diminished. As its author says, all wild animals meet with a tragic death, and have all they can do to escape from their enemies of the animal kingdom, to say nothing of men.
— Paris experienced “a London fog” the 17th inst., interfering with traffic.
— Mrs. Lillian Stevens is re-elected president of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
— The gypsum and plaster companies of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, combined the 19th inst. Capitalization, $10,000,000.
— On the 19th inst. the lower house of the Georgia Legislature “rejected a bill to disfranchise negroes, by a vote of 113 to 17.”
— A San Francisco dispatch of the 17th inst. describes an alleged plot in Alaska to set up a republic, overthrowing the local government of the Northwest Territory.
— A gas well was struck at Tipton, Ind., the 22d inst., having a flow of 50,000,000 feet. The workmen were obliged to throw down their tools and flee for their lives.
— The Norwegian steamer “Ella” was lost in a storm off the Newfoundland coast, the 17th inst., her crew of thirty men perishing. Other disasters at sea are also reported.
— Private Pollard, of the Thirtieth U. S. Infantry, is sentenced by court-martial to five years’ imprisonment at hard labor “for having said, relative to President McKinley’s assassination, that he was glad of it.”
— Governor Van Sant, of Minnesota, states that he will call “a special session of the legislature to deal with the consolidation of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroads, if the present laws will not prevent it.”
— On the 17th inst. a battle occurred at the Providence coal mines, Webster County, Ky., “between armed guards and striking miners. Over 2,000 shots were fired. One striking miner was killed and one striker and three guards were wounded.”
— Officials of the Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, ask the secular court to “enjoin Father Crowley, the excommunicated priest, from attending service at the church.” The priest has retained counsel. It is the first suit of its kind on record.
— A dispatch from Galway, Ireland, dated the 21st inst., states that “Arthur Lynch, Colonel of the Second Irish Brigade in the Boer war, was elected to a seat in Parliament to-day. It is freely declared by his opponents that he will not be permitted to take his seat.” He is an Australian by birth, owns an Irish estate, and lives in Paris.
— A Constantinople dispatch of the 23d inst. states that “the Porte has addressed a note to the Powers complaining that their continual interference in Turkish internal affairs has undermined the Sultan’s authority, and rendered it impossible for him to carry out the reforms stipulated in the Berlin Treaty. The Porte demands that the Powers cease this interference in Turkish affairs, and states that the Sultan will then introduce the reforms required.”
— President Roosevelt’s proclamation designating Thursday, the 28th inst., as Thanksgiving day in the United States, reads as follows:—
“The season is nigh when, according to the time-hallowed custom of our people, the President appoints a day as the especial occasion for praise and thanksgiving to God. This Thanksgiving finds the people still bowed with sorrow for the death of a great and good President. We mourn President McKinley because we so loved and honored him; and the manner of his death should awaken in the breasts of our people a keen anxiety for the country, and at the same time a resolute purpose not to be driven by any calamity from the path of strong, orderly, popular liberty, which, as a nation, we have thus far safely trod.”
“Yet in spite of this great disaster, it is nevertheless true that no people on earth have such abundant cause for thanksgiving as we have. The past year, in particular, has been one of peace and plenty. We have prospered in things material, and have been able to work for our own uplifting in things intellectual and spiritual. Let us remember that, as much has been given, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds. We can best prove our thankfulness to the Almighty by the way in which on this earth and at this time each of us does his duty to his fellow men.”
“Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, do hereby designate as a day of general thanksgiving, Thursday, the 28th of this present November, and do recommend that throughout the land the people cease from their wonted occupations, and at their several homes and places of worship reverently thank the Giver of all good for the countless blessings of our national life.
“In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this second day of November, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and One, and of the Independence of the United States the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth.”
The best way to celebrate Thanksgiving day is by sharing with God’s poor the many bounties which we have received at His hand. A. J. B.
