p. 13 | NEWS AND NOTES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 13, 1901

NEWS AND NOTES

—A $10,000,000 table oilcloth trust has been formed in New York City.

—The Canadian Pacific Railway demands total abstinence of all its employees.

—Cecil Rhodes and Dr. Jameson recently left South Africa, and are now in England.

—In a recent five-hour fight with the Philippine insurgents, in Batangas Province, the Americans were victorious, losing two killed.

—The Union Pacific Railway earnings last year were $21,250,000, $14,600,000 of which is available for dividends.

—It is announced that “upwards of 30,000 men are to be recalled from the Philippines, diminishing the expenditure by sixty per cent.”

—The National Tube Company is endeavoring to get its skilled workmen to “sign individual contracts to practically repudiate union labor.”

—The large floating steel drydock at Havana, Cuba, has been purchased from Spain, by the United States Navy Department, for $185,000.

—Prairie dogs are so numerous in western Kansas that the legislature has been asked to appropriate $10,000 for their extermination by poison.

—Lord Roberts has been granted $500,000 by the British House of Lords (through a message from Edward VII) for his services in South Africa.

—The Chicago post-office will hereafter give employment to “no boy who smokes cigarettes or is known to have ever been addicted to the habit.”

—The Union Signal states that two battle-ships of the first class in the Japanese navy are commanded by “Christian captains.” But the Word says that the weapons of the Christian are “not carnal.”

—Mr. Bond, Premier of Newfoundland, and Mr. Reid, the millionaire who owned nearly all of Newfoundland, have reached an “agreement by which the latter surrenders ownership of railroads, 2,800,000 acres of land, and telegraph lines, to the government.”

—An exchange seems to be of the opinion that “very high political significance will attach to the coming meeting of Emperor Nicholas, King Edward, and Emperor William at the German maneuvers near Mayence. No decision, it is understood, has yet been reached as to whether the three sovereigns will be accompanied by their foreign ministers, but such an arrangement is probable.”

—The radical reforms in second-class mail regulations now being brought about by Postmaster-General Smith, will bar from the one-cent-a-pound privilege all papers whose lists are built up by premium offers. It is hoped that these reforms will enable the postal department to clear, instead of losing, money each year, and thus enable the government to reduce letter postage to one cent.

—It has been proved that the War Department, and not the liquor organizations, is to blame for the “continual repetition of the claims of the daily press that the abolition of the canteen has resulted in the increased drunkenness of the soldiers.” High army officers state that in the United States War Department “a force of clerks has been engaged in making up figures and furnishing them to the newspapers.”

—Among the colored people in Chicago has been started a Black Cross Federation, the purpose of which is to “promote legislation for the punishment of those participating in the lynching of negroes,” to secure “the rights of full citizenship in those Southern States in which the negroes have been disfranchised,” and to “force the railroads of the South to furnish as good accommodations for negroes as are furnished for the whites;” also to foster “the education of negro children.”

—Russia intends to build a canal “from the Caspian Sea to the Ural Mountains.”

—It is reported that the pope will not break with France, in spite of her new anti-clerical law.

—The Powers will prohibit for two years the importation, by China, of arms and ammunition.

—Boxers recently posted anti-foreign placards in the vicinity of the Christian chapels in Canton, China.

—English experts recently decided, in a test of locomotives at Kingston, Jamaica, that “those made in America were better than the British product.”

—It is thought that “if the present revolutionary troubles in Colombia become more aggravated, traffic across the Isthmus of Panama will be interrupted.”

—By order of Emperor William, all German soldiers who were in Peking during the siege, will be “promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officers.”

—There will soon be a wireless telegraph line, or rather, wireless telegraphic communication, between Chicago and Milwaukee. It will be the first “line” of its kind in the United States.

—The stock of gold in the United States Treasury at present is “the largest in the history of the government, and is accumulating at the rate of from $4,500,000 to $5,000,000 a month.”

—M. Santos-Dumont’s air ship was recently wrecked at Paris, while a test was being made, the owner having a narrow escape from death. The air pump failed, and the machine fell to the ground.

—The United States war-ships “Wisconsin” and “Iowa” are ordered to “be in readiness to go to Panama to protect American interests” endangered by the Colombian rebellion. The war-ship “Machias” has already gone to Panama.

—It is reported that in his recent speech on the race problem, at Marinette, Wis., Senator Tillman, of South Carolina, “defended lynching, claiming it afforded the only means of carrying out justice in the South.” We hope this report is untrue.

—The old United States man-of-war “Hartford,” Admiral Farragut’s flagship during the Civil War, is “spending the summer in northern Europe, with about 500 young Americans on board, whom Commander Hawley is training for the naval service.”

—Dispatches state that “the Tien Chounli rising in China is growing, and that a large number of soldiers under General Tung Fu Siang have concentrated on the government premises in Shen Chow, unfurling banners with the motto, ‘Sweep China, destroy aliens,’ emblazoned thereon.”

—“The proclamation of Governor Dockery, of Missouri,” says the Literary Digest, “calling on the people to offer up prayers for rain during the recent drought in the West, has provoked much discussion of prayer and its propriety in such cases.” Many papers approve, while many disapprove.

—A dispatch from Peking, China, dated the 6th inst., states that “the foreign ministers had arranged to sign the protocol to-day, but Sir Ernest Satow, the British Minister, yesterday notified his colleagues that Great Britain would be unable to sign it. He gave no reason for his refusal. The meeting of ministers has been indefinitely postponed.”

—According to Backbone, “saloonists are objecting to the extension of the rural free delivery system. Taking the farmer’s mail to his door obviates the necessity of his coming to town so often, and hence, of course, ‘enjoying the privilege’ of visiting the booze dispensary as often as he otherwise could, without going especially for that purpose.”

—The time required for the journey from Paris to London will soon be shortened to six hours. In order to do this, the Compagnie du Nord is making “arrangements on the Calais docks by which the baggage cars will be lifted by an electric crane from the boat and placed on trucks ready on the rails. In this way the baggage will not be handled except on departure and arrival, and much time will be saved. This will be put in operation as soon as the special cars are finished and the apparatus is completed on the docks at Dover.”

—A Queenstown dispatch dated the 8th inst., states that “the big White Star steamship ‘Oceanic,’ which sailed from Liverpool yesterday for New York, collided off Tuskar Rock, Ireland, last night, in a dense fog, with the steamship ‘Kincora,’ of the Waterford Steamship Company, which sank. Seven of the crew of the ‘Kincora’ were rescued.” Eight of the “Kincora” crew are missing, and are believed to have perished. The “Oceanic” resumed its voyage, its only damage consisting in “a few dents to the port plates.”

—In 1840 there were 107,475 Chinese in the United States. Now the number is but 89,800.

—Ambassador Andrew D. White states that “in exports to Germany the United States is first among the nations.”

—It is reported that a French squadron is on its way to Turkish waters, “to force settlement of French claims.”

—The British torpedo-boat destroyer “Viper” recently struck a rock in the English Channel, and is a complete wreck.

—Governor Yuan Shi Kai is having arsenals constructed in the province of Shantung, “for the manufacture of arms and smokeless powder.”

—Liquor men, says the National Advocate, estimate that the abolition of the army canteen means a loss to the liquor trade annually of at least $2,000,000.

—The recent death of seventeen men and five women at Tampico, Mexico, was caused by “the collapse of the big terminal wharf of the Monterey and Mexican Gulf railways” at that place.

—Dowager Empress Frederick, eldest child of Queen Victoria, and mother of Emperor William of Germany, died the 5th inst., at Cronberg, aged sixty years. Her death was caused by a cancer.

—According to Mr. Chamberlain’s recent statement in the British House of Commons, General Kitchener has been instructed to “enforce the death penalty on all Boers found guilty of killing non-combatants and natives in British employ.”

—The threatened strike of all employees of the United States Steel Company began the 10th inst. Messrs. Morgan and Schwab are unwilling to yield to the demands of the labor union. If carried on, this means the most gigantic labor struggle ever inaugurated.

—Count von Waldersee arrived at Hamburg the 8th inst., and received the cross of the Order of Merit, by order of the Emperor. The Ninth Regiment of Field artillery will hereafter bear his name. On account of his mother’s death, Emperor William could not be present.

—Lord Stanley recently declared, in the British House of Commons, that “the cost of the war in South Africa, from April 1 to July 31, was 15,750,000 pounds, while the actual cost of carrying on the war during July was 1,250,000 pounds per week.” It is thought that if this great expense continues much longer, there will be plenty of pro-Boers in England.

—It seems that 7,000 Pullman porters have organized a union, with headquarters in St. Louis. They appeal to the public, stating that “their trouble is a rapid and steady decline in tips, from which they have been obliged for many years to make their living, their salaries being insufficient to pay their expenses. The regulation tip to a porter of a sleeping-car was formerly twenty-five cents; now it is ten or fifteen cents, and very often a mere ‘thanks.’ They emphasize the fact that they must have more salary from the company under the new conditions.”

—Venezuela is again in trouble. Dr. Rangel Garbiras, with 5,000 men, has revolted, and “the Venezuelan government has sent 10,000 troops against the insurgents, who are located at San Antonio de Tachuria, on the Colombian frontier. A dispatch from Curacao states that the situation is grave, and that the whole country is ready to rise against the arbitrary methods of President Castro. Complications with Colombia are feared, and there has been a suspension of constitutional guarantees.” Venezuela claims that Colombian troops accompany the rebel army.

—Another negro has been burned at the stake, this time in Alabama. He was accused of rape. A negro, his mother, and his half sister, were recently taken from a Missouri jail and lynched, their bodies being riddled with bullets. No strenuous effort was made to protect them. It seems that “a white man and his wife had been murdered,” and that “these three negroes and ten others fell under suspicion.” The newspapers state that the mobs “consisted, of course, of the best people.” Commenting upon the mob spirit of rotten-egging people, the Public (Chicago) well says: “Between these and the ‘nigger-burning’ mobs there is only a difference of degree, great as the difference is. The spirit that prompts the rotten-egging of men and women preachers of unpopular doctrines, or that drives unwelcome agitators out of a town before a mob for advocating the closing of saloons, would, if circumstances were as favorable, just as quickly hang an obnoxious negro woman and riddle her body with bullets, or burn a suspected negro man, and ravish their ears with his agonizing screams. It is all one spirit, capable of going to any lengths of lawlessness; and it is hellish beyond expression.”