Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 5, 1906

— Yellow fever is reported at Havana, and yellow fever and bubonic plague at Rio Janeiro.

— The French government is facing a deficit on account of the great expense of the military preparations made when war with Germany over the Moroccan question seemed imminent. It is stated that these preparation cost France $50,000,000.

— By a large majority the lower house of Congress has voted to agree with the committee report on the meat inspection bill, recommending that the government bear the cost of the inspection. The packers are not to be required to state on the labels of canned meat the date when the contents of each can was put up.

— Attorney-General Moody has taken initial steps toward prosecution of the Standard Oil trust for violation of the Elkins Anti-rebate act and the Sherman Anti-trust law. Special sessions of the federal grand juries will be called in Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Kansas City, for the purpose of preparing indictments against the oil trust and against the railroads implicated in the granting of rebates. It is not expected that this prosecution will reach the higher officials of the Standard “system.”

— The most sensational step ever taken in the prosecution of illegal combines in this country was that of Judge Kinkade of Toledo, Ohio, who, on June 25, sentenced five prominent ice dealers in that city, who had combined to raise the price of ice, to one year in the workhouse and a fine of $5,000, the sentence being the maximum penalty provided by the law of that State. The judge stated that part of the term of imprisonment would be remitted provided the men made restitution of money extorted from the people, and ceased to operate as a trust.

— The pressure which the Douma is bringing to bear upon the czar to dismiss the Goremykin cabinet, and form a ministry which will defer to the wishes of the people, is greatly strengthened by alarming reports of disaffection in the army. A St. Petersburg dispatch says: “The government’s sudden fear of affronting public opinion after finding the army infected with the revolutionary propaganda is shown in the hurried grant of a new trial to seven men condemned to death at Riga, the acquittal of six others, and the commutation of death sentences imposed on the three murderers of the foreman of the Putiloff iron works. . . . The news from the provinces shows that a state of general anarchy is growing. The efforts of the agitators to induce the peasants working for landlords to strike are meeting with success. In Altarak and Taurida Provinces the peasants are abandoning the fields, and in Tula Province roving bands of peasants are marching through the country, dragging in their wake not only the workers from the fields, but the domestic servants of the gentry.” An uprising of a very serious character is reported on the part of the garrison of Osowiec, one of the great fortresses on the frontier of Poland.

— The following incident throwing a side-light on conditions in China is reported from Tientsin: “Yuan Shih Kai, viceroy of Chile, delivered an original judgment the other day in the case of five prisoners, who were liable to the death penalty. He gave them a chance of redemption by prayer. It is a period of extreme drought, and the viceroy ordered the men to pray for rain. If their prayers were not answered in three days, they were to be executed. There was a small rainfall, and the prisoners were liberated. The success of the experiment induced its repetition, and five other prisoners are now fervently praying for more rain on behalf of the community, but more particularly on behalf of themselves.”

— An incident showing the degree of ignorance and superstition which is harbored in darkest New York occurred June 27, when a report was in some way started among the Jewish East Side residents that Jewish children were being butchered in the schools. “Before eleven o’clock,” says the Sun, “more than 50,000 children were pushing and surging through the narrow streets south of Houston and east of the Bowery, school windows were being broken by maddened parents, window screens were being torn off, and mounted police, patrolmen, and roundsmen were charging the mobs in an effort to restore order.” It was necessary to dismiss the schools for the day. Who started the report could not be learned.

— At a conference of representatives of the nations, called last summer by King Victor Emmanuel, it was decided to establish an International Institute of Agriculture, and a protocol was drawn up accordingly. This was signed by the diplomatic representatives of forty nations, the only nation refusing to become a party to the institute being Santo Domingo. All the home governments have ratified the protocol, with the exception of the United States, and President Roosevelt has taken steps to secure its ratification by this country. The purpose of the institute is to gather and disseminate accurate information of the condition of the world’s supply of agricultural staples, for the common benefit of agriculture in all countries. The quantity of staples on hand in various producing countries and the condition of the growing crops are to be ascertained through the co-operation of the powers signatory to the protocol, and this information, collated and translated into the equivalent measures and values of each nation, is to be transmitted by cable simultaneously to all countries. Through this agency the agriculturists throughout the world will be made acquainted with the state of the world’s supply. It is expected that the International Institute will put an end to violent fluctuations in the price of food products by placing the world in possession of information now unavailable or guessed at.