Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 18, 1902

— The town of Ocos, on the seacoast of Mexico, which was once a seaport of considerable importance, has been sinking since the earthquake shocks of last April in that vicinity, and is now almost completely submerged.

— A feature of recent shipments of fruit to Chicago was a consignment of fourteen car loads of apples from New Mexico, which is part of a 200 car-load crop from a single orchard, the fruit being grown 4,000 feet above sea level.

— The United States Geological Survey has been called upon to settle the question whether the Chicago drainage canal causes pollution of the water of the Mississippi River at St. Louis, which has long been a point of controversy between these two cities.

— The disfranchisement clause, commonly known as the “grandfather clause” in the Alabama State constitution, and which is similar to clauses in the constitutions of Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia, is to be tested before the United States Supreme Court.

— A Sunday-closing movement has been started in Chicago, and is being actively pushed by the barbers’ and butchers’ unions and the retail clerks. Jewish as well as Gentile storekeepers are being persuaded to do no Sunday business. This movement differs from most other Sunday-closing movements in that it depends upon the power of persuasion, there being no effective Sunday law which can be invoked. Apparently it is succeeding quite as well as do similar attempts elsewhere.

— Natives of the arctic coast of western North America are reported to be dying by thousands from measles, pneumonia, and grip. The epidemic is attributed to the march of civilization to Cape Nome and northward. The decline of the natives, says the captain of the whaling steamer “Jeannette,” began when they commenced to wear white men’s clothing and drink white men’s whisky. Barbarian races, it may be added, are never able to imitate the white man’s virtues, or to escape his vices. Without the gospel, civilization is more a curse to them than a blessing.

— Oil has been discovered in Ontario, on a farm near Chatham. A well has been sunk there which yields about 1,000 barrels a day.

— Cholera has broken out in a regiment of United States soldiers stationed in the Philippines, and seven of them have died from the disease.

— President Castro, of Venezuela, has returned to Caracas in triumph, the revolution which a short time ago appeared successful having wholly collapsed.

— By “automatic closure,” which is to be applied to the debate on the educational bill in the English Parliament, that measure will be brought to a final vote by November 28.

— A class in boxing and wrestling is conducted by the Rev. J. L. Scudder in the basement of his church (Congregationalist) in Jersey City. Over one hundred boys attend the exhibitions.

— China has requested the United States to aid her in securing arbitration by The Hague tribunal of the question whether the Boxer indemnity demanded by the powers shall be paid in gold or silver.

— A report of the wrecking of the steamship “Elingamite,” running between Sydney and Auckland, has been received from Wellington, New Zealand. Ninety-six of those on board are reported lost.

— Reports of a successful air-ship trial are received from Nantes, France. The machine is the property of the Lebaudy brothers, and carries four passengers. It was sailed in any direction at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour.

— The Pittsburg steamship company will build twenty steel steamships to carry grain from Duluth to Buffalo, each ship to be 550 feet long, 58 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. They will be able to carry 129,000,000 bushels of grain in a lake season.

— Fuel briquettes made from peat are now being produced in Canada at a cost of $1.50 per ton. United States Consul Gunsalus at Toronto reports to the State Department that from his observations he believes the fuel to be highly satisfactory as a substitute for anthracite coal.

— In his forthcoming message to Congress, President Roosevelt is expected to give considerable attention to the subject of the control of the trusts. It is stated that he will recommend certain amendments to the existing anti-trust law which will effectively curtail the evils of these organizations.

— A Washington dispatch announces the development of a hardy variety of orange capable of withstanding the cold waves that occasionally prevail in Florida and ruin the common varieties grown there. Search for such an orange has been maintained by the government department of agriculture for four years. The new variety was developed by crossing with the Japanese trifoliate orange.

— The peasants of southern Italy have been brought to a condition of great destitution and misery by excessive taxation and the ravages caused by phylloxera and deforestation, and the evil has reached a point where the government is considering radical measures for their relief. Immense numbers are seeking to better their fortune by emigration.

— The Bolivian government is sending a force of 2,000 men to the Acre territory which has been in dispute between Bolivia and Brazil, on account of its rich forests of rubber trees. The territory was recently leased by Bolivia to a foreign syndicate, and this act aroused the displeasure of Brazil.

— The use of the parlor match is to be prohibited in New York City after January 1 next, it being classed with “dangerous combustibles.” Any firm selling parlor matches after that date in New York City will be prosecuted. According to the city fire commissioner 1,300 fires have been caused by parlor matches in a single year.

— The new East River bridge at New York City, which has been building for several years, and was well advanced toward completion, was severely damaged by a fire which broke out in one of the towers, November 10. Some of the smaller cables were burned through, but it is thought that the large cables have not been materially injured.

— Great damage is being caused by the eruption of Stromboli, the volcano on the island of that name, near the north coast of Sicily. For centuries Stromboli has remained in a state of continuous mild eruption, but recently it became affected by the volcanic epidemic of this year, and now the eruption has reached a stage of great intensity. Many houses on the island have been destroyed.

— A stir has been caused in Christian Science circles by the recent death at Evanston, Ill., of Miss Louise Hoge, who, when ill of pneumonia, was treated by a Christian Science “healer” for typhoid fever. It is stated that Mrs. Eddy, the head of the Christian Science cult, has instructed her followers that henceforth they may comply with the State laws in matters pertaining to the treatment and prevention of contagious or infectious diseases.

— Great damage has been done to houses and coffee plantations by the eruption of the volcano of Santa Maria on the morning of October 25. The Guatamalan government has endeavored to suppress the news, but it is known that the coffee plantations were covered with “ashes” to a depth of six feet, 15,000 tons of coffee destroyed, the buildings on the plantations were crushed by the weight of mud and stones, and thousands of domestic animals were killed, and it is believed that many people lost their lives.

— The use of cocaine among the negroes in Mississippi has increased to such an alarming extent, says a Jackson, Miss., press telegram, that stringent legislation is seriously proposed as a remedial measure. A law was passed in 1900 forbidding the sale of the drug except upon a physician’s prescription, but this has been ignored by the vast majority of the druggists. The law now proposed will make it a crime to use cocaine except by a physician’s order. “Physicians say,” the dispatch says, “that if the habit among the negroes is not suppressed, and radical steps to this end taken very quickly, it will mean the utter ruin and final extinction of the race in the South.”