p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 20, 1904

Current Mention

—The value of this year’s cotton crop, including sea island cotton, is estimated at $418,350,000.

—The Washington Post announces the postal deficiency for the past fiscal year as being $8,779,492.

—A fire at Winnipeg, Manitoba, October 11, destroyed two business blocks, the property loss being about $700,000.

—Three anarchists were arrested near Barcelona, Spain, October 11, on a charge of being implicated in a plot to kill King Alfonso.

—Pope Pius is getting ready for the complete separation of church and state in France, and has started a fund for the support of the French clergy.

—A strike of baggage wagon drivers began in Chicago, October 12, attended by rioting, which required repeated efforts on the part of the police to quell.

—Twelve persons on board the schooner “Wentworth” lost their lives by the wrecking of the vessel on the Massachusetts coast near Chatham during a heavy gale, October 11.

—By the text of a treaty recently concluded between France and Spain, France is recognized as having paramount control in Morocco, and it is agreed there is to be no partition of that country.

—A terrible storm on the coast of Honduras, beginning September 29 and continuing three days, is reported by steamer at New Orleans. Several enormous landslips took place, and much of the banana crop was ruined.

—According to statements made by Judge Parker, Democratic candidate for the presidency, $650,000,000 and 290,000 lives have been sacrificed in maintaining the title of the United States to the Philippine Islands, acquired by the payment of $20,000,000 to Spain.

—“There are 950 miles of oiled roads in California,” says Country Life in America. “This State was the first to make use of crude petroleum oil in road improvement, it having thus far hardly passed beyond the experimental stage elsewhere. It has been, however, a marked success in the West.”

—Arrangements have been made to hold an American Forest Congress in Washington, D. C., for five days, beginning January 2. The congress, it is announced, is called to consider the forests in their relation to the industries closely dependent upon them, and to forward the conservative use of the forest resources of the country.

—A lieutenant in the seventh regiment of the National Guard, at San Diego, Cal., was recently expelled from the Journeymen Plumbers’ Association because he refused to withdraw from the regiment. A rule of the plumbers’ association forbids members to enlist in the National Guard. This is the first case of the kind in California, and is likely to lead to further developments.

—In a speech delivered before the American Street Railway Association at St. Louis, October 13, President Francis, the official head of the World’s Fair, declared that that enterprise had lost at least $1,000,000 by the Sunday closing restriction imposed by Congress at the instigation of the Washington “reform bureau.”

—Residents at Fort Hamilton, Bath Beach, and Bay Ridge, L. I., are apprehensive over the prospective testing of several new sixteen-inch coast defense guns, which have been put in place at Fort Hamilton. The same guns, when tested at Sandy Hook, shook houses for miles inland, shaking down ceilings and damaging windows. The commandant at Fort Hamilton says that he can not assure residents in that vicinity that their property will escape damage.

—The Sunday Rest Congress which has been announced among the conventions to be held at the St. Louis fair began its session at that place, October 13. The following message was drawn up and forwarded to President Roosevelt: “Mr. President: Since reports have come to us and are widely current, that unnecessary work is done in the different departments of the government on the Sabbath, the International Sunday Rest Congress, representing twelve Sabbath associations, ten of them operating in the United States, would respectfully request you to ask the members of your cabinet to investigate this matter, and to rectify this wrong if it exists.”

—Another terrible “World’s Fair Special” wreck occurred October 10, in the early morning, near Warrensburg, Mo., on the Missouri Pacific Railway. A freight train, which had been waiting on a siding for the “special” to pass, which was in two sections, went onto the main line after the first section of the “special” and a local passenger-train had passed, the latter being mistaken for the second section of the “special.” The two trains came together while running at high speed, each having been on a down grade just prior to the collision. Twenty-seven dead bodies were taken from the wreck, and an equal number were seriously hurt, several of them fatally.

—Interest in the Russo-Japanese war the past week has centered in the reports of another great battle between the armies of Field Marshal Oyama and General Kuropatkin, which is described as being even more desperate and sanguinary than that at Liao Yang some weeks ago. The battle began October 9 with a general forward movement by the Russian commander, who either felt strong enough to assume the offensive or had received orders to advance against the enemy. The Japanese lines gave ground during the first two days of the battle, and were forced back for some distance, but on the third day the Japanese commander began a counter-attack, which, according to reports, turned the tide of battle against the Russians, who after nearly a week of almost continuous fighting have been forced back to a position along the Sakhe River, the Japanese forces following in pursuit. One report states that the Russian loss in killed and wounded is 30,000, and that

4,500 Russian dead were left in front of General Kuroki’s army alone. The Japanese loss is not given. The Japanese are also reported to have captured about forty cannon, besides other arms and ammunition, and some hundreds of prisoners. Some fighting is reported at Port Arthur, but there seems to be little change in the situation there. The sailing of the Baltic fleet is not yet announced, and it seems not yet certain that the fleet will sail at all.