p. 20 | Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 9, 1903

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 23.

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Current Mention

— The city of Racine, Wis., was visited by a $400,000 fire, May 31.

— Ninety thousand textile workers in Philadelphia went out on a strike, June 1, closing 553 mills.

— The burning of a government pawn shop at Naples, Italy, June 2, caused a loss of $2,200,000.

— President Roosevelt has returned to Washington from a 14,000 mile trip, during which he made 265 speeches.

— Five men were killed and five others wounded in a battle between cowboys in Cheyenne County, Kan., June 3.

— Chronicle tables show 76,625 fires in the United States last year, against 80,379 for 1901; property loss, $161,488,255.

— Pope Leo has refused to see President Loubet of France when he comes to Rome if his visit is made as the guest of the king of Italy.

— East St. Louis has organized a citizen patrol, headed by the mayor, to fight the flood, rescue those in danger, and protect property.

— Chicago families lose $100,000 weekly through wages being paid by check, says Mr. E. W. Chapin, of that city. The checks are nearly always taken to saloons to be cashed.

— A million people are reported to be on the verge of starvation in China, and ten thousand children of these unfortunates have been sold by their parents for food.

— A British steamship foundered off the harbor of Valparaiso, Chile, June 2, during a severe gale, and seventy of those on board were drowned, seventeen others succeeding in reaching the shore.

— The American navy is to be increased by the construction of five new battle-ships, three of which will have a displacement each of 16,000 tons. The cost of each of the latter will be over $4,000,000.

— Pope Leo's health is reported to be again in a critical condition, the pontiff being much of the time in a comatose state, and showing no desire to take his customary trips through the Vatican gardens.

— The twenty-first international Christian Endeavor convention will be held in Denver, Colo., July 9-13. Railway rates of one fare for the round trip are expected to be made from all parts of the country.

— A collision between railway trains of the Santa Fé line, near Stilwell, Kan., June 4, caused nine deaths, and injuries to a larger number. The trains were using the Missouri Pacific tracks on account of the Kansas floods.

— The death list of those drowned in the flood at Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., and Topeka, Kan., is estimated to be about ninety, the victims at Topeka numbering about forty. No accurate estimate of the property loss has been made.

— The Sny levee, on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi opposite Louisiana, Mo., was broken by the river flood, and 5,000 people living in the section which the levee protects were forced to flee for safety. Damage amounting to millions of dollars was done to the rich farming district inundated.

— The Hargis-Cockrell feud in Breathitt County, Ky., which is attracting so much attention, dates back to the Civil War. Fresh outbreaks of assassination are feared in spite of the militia guarding Jackson, which is now the center of trouble.

— A Pacific Ocean cable has been laid between Manila and the island of Guam, and on the completion of the cable between Guam and Honolulu the United States government will have a trans-Pacific cable connecting this country with the Orient. This will be the first cable to be laid across the Pacific.

— A renewal of the anthracite coal strike in Pennsylvania is threatened, a dispute having arisen over the interpretation of the nine-hour clause in the award made by the coal strike commission. Evidently the peace secured by the commission does not rest on as stable a basis as was supposed.

— Fast and reckless automobiling is very much in public disfavor in England. A London dispatch states that “Sir Ralph Payne Gallway's suggestion that the public be allowed to go gunning for automobilists has attracted general notice in England, and is even seriously approved by some.”

— The famous Ferris wheel which was built at Chicago for use during the World's Fair, was recently sold to a junk dealer in that city for $1,800. The construction of the wheel cost $362,000. Bonds to the amount of $300,000 are outstanding against it, besides a floating debt of $100,000.

— Citizens of Mount Kisco and New Castle, N. Y., were much excited over numerous incendiary fires which have recently been set in those towns, and petitioned Governor Odell for assistance to put an end to the outrages. A reward of $1,000 was offered for the arrest and conviction of the culprits.

— The strike epidemic has spread in Chicago to dining-rooms and kitchens in hotels and restaurants, and a number of such establishments are “tied up” as a result. At the Chicago Beach hotel, one of the most prominent in the city, the women guests decided, after holding an indignation meeting, to do the work themselves.

— Two new sections have recently been added to the penal code of the State of New York, the purpose of which is to suppress discrimination on the part of labor unions against members of the national guard. Any such action by a labor union is made a misdemeanor, and is liable to punishment as such.

— Twelve lives are reported lost in a flood which swept away the town of Pacolet, S. C., the evening of June 6. The flood was caused by a cloudburst. The great cotton mills of Spartanburg and Clifton were destroyed. The property loss will reach $2,000,000, and thousands of persons were thrown out of employment.

— The nearest approach to a solution of the problem of aerial navigation has been effected by an air-ship constructed for the Le Baudy Brothers, of France, which on a recent trial covered a distance of twenty-five miles, half of which was against a strong wind, in about an hour and a half, carrying two men. The ship was at all times under perfect control.

— The Pennsylvania supreme court has given a decision sustaining a judgment of the lower court which refused to grant a charter to the “First Church of Christ, Scientist,” of Philadelphia. The ground upon which the refusal is chiefly based is the conviction that the doctrines of Christian Science are a menace to the public health.

— Another dreadful massacre is reported from European Turkey, the village of Smerdash, south of Lake Presba, being the scene of the outrage. Three hundred houses were burned by the Turks, and two hundred persons, mostly women and girls, were slaughtered. The remainder of the inhabitants fled, and are in the mountains, without food or shelter.

— Forest fires, due to long drought, have been raging in the woods throughout New York State, Long Island, and parts of New England, and Canada, and many villages in Maine and the province of Montreal have been destroyed. The property loss will amount to millions of dollars. The smoke of the burning forests obscured the sun and produced a yellow twilight over a vast section of country centering around New York City.

— The worst cyclone ever known in this country, measured by its results, visited Gainesville, Ga., June 1. The storm was of very short duration, but in the few moments of its fury one hundred and twenty-five residents of the place were killed or mortally injured, three hundred more were hurt more or less severely, four hundred buildings were destroyed, and fifteen hundred people left homeless. The damage to property amounts to $600,000.

— New evidence that Russia and Japan are preparing for war comes by steamer from the Orient to Vancouver, British Columbia. Japan is sending soldiers into Corea in the guise of settlers, it is said, and Russia has converted Port Arthur into a huge military camp. Russian officers in Manchuria friendly to the Chinese have earnestly advised the latter to return to China with their families until after the war, which they assert will extend over the whole of southern Manchuria and Liao-tung.

— Another antitoxin serum cure for consumption was announced at a recent meeting of the Newark, N. J., board of health, by Dr. Herman C. H. Herold, who stated that researches had been conducted for some time by himself and two other physicians, which had resulted in the production of a serum believed to be efficient as a cure for consumption in many cases. Forty-three physicians had, he stated, used the serum during the past year, treating one hundred and fifty patients, of whom seven had fully recovered, and many others were making progress toward recovery.

— Facts which have become known concerning the eruption of the Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala last year show that the disaster to the surrounding region was much greater than was reported at the time, the real news having been suppressed by the Guatemalan government.

The second city in size in the country, containing 60,000, was utterly destroyed by the eruption and an earthquake, which occurred April 18, 1902, with what dreadful loss of life is not known. To-day the city is deserted, showing only a mass of ruins rising from volcanic ashes six feet deep.

— An Indianapolis telegram makes this statement relative to a move for Sunday law enforcement in that city: “Mayor Bookwalter to-day [May 21] instructed the superintendent of police to notify merchants who make a practice of running seven days in the week that if they did not obey the law, he would prosecute them. The mayor's instructions were the result of a call from a committee of the Protective Association of Retail Clerks. Communications from twenty organizations in the city were read, which said the members were ready to stand by the 1,500 members of the association.”

— A theory to account for the prevalence of murder and suicide in sections of the country at this time has been announced by the United States weather observer at La Crosse, Wis., says a dispatch from that place. The theory is that the evil condition of things is due to the weather. The low barometric pressure, he states, produces a morbid, morose disposition, which leans naturally toward crime and murder. The theory is needed in La Crosse to account for four murders and a score of lesser crimes, which, says the dispatch, have been perpetrated in that vicinity within two weeks. One of the murders was committed by a man aged sixty, upon his neighbor, aged seventy-eight. A different theory accounting for present-day crime, and we think a truer one, is set forth in the Word of God.

— Experiments which have recently been conducted for the first time in this country, by Professor Lyon, of the physiology department of Chicago University, show that the heart of a dead animal can be made to beat the same as during life, and that without the aid of any artificial stimulus. In Dr. Lyon's laboratory the visitor may see dogs' hearts in glass jars, pulsating in the normal manner, and driving blood through tubes into the extracted lungs of the animal from which they were taken. Blood from which the fibrin or coagulating element has been removed, on being forced into the heart of a dead animal, causes it to resume its beating; and if the blood is properly aerated, the pulsations will be kept up indefinitely. Such facts seem to emphasize the Scripture statement, “The blood is the life.”

— Brother B. R. Nordyke, manager of the Kansas City branch of the Pacific Press, sends the following description of the situation there caused by the flood, as it affects the traffic and the mails: “Mails go out from here now via boats and steamers, but they do not take anything but letters. Books and papers are held at the post-office here until the railroads can get into the city. We are pretty closely shut in. Steamers now ply between Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., charging each passenger fifty cents to cross the river. It is still raining, but the Missouri River has gone down eighteen inches in the past thirty-six hours. It now stands at 33½ feet above low-water mark, and 12½ feet above danger line. But the citizens are of good courage, and refuse all outside aid. Kansas City is feeding thousands of refugees from Kansas and near-by Missouri towns. The city has called on the United States government for 500 more tents and 2,000 more blankets, but no rations, as Kansas City is determined to feed all needy at its own expense. The city is under martial law, and has enacted a $500 fine now for overcharges in prices of meals, bread, meat, or groceries. Armour is furnishing boat-load after boat-load of beef and pork free to the relief committee for the benefit of the needy. The governor of Missouri caused all saloons to be closed here indefinitely. Soldiers are patrolling the streets. There is still five feet of water running through the union depot here, and it will be a month or six weeks before it can be used again. We are of good courage, our stock of books is in warehouse, safe and dry, and we are ready for business as soon as the government and the express companies will take packages. It will be two or three weeks before all the railroads can take freight. One freight line open to the South, the Kansas City Southern for Arkansas and Texas, and the Missouri Pacific Railway are trying to take mail and passengers to St. Louis, but no freights. They expect the high waters at St. Louis to close up this one line soon now, but we still have the steamers.”