The Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Canteen Law
By a unanimous vote the Association of Military Surgeons, in session at St. Paul, Minn., May 31, passed a resolution in favor of the repeal of the anti-canteen law. The resolution claims that intemperance and disorder have increased since the abolition of the canteen, and the association recommends its re-establishment on grounds of “sanitation, morality, and discipline.” Of course this action is a direct result of persistent and systematic misrepresentations on the part of the liquor element, and that portion of the daily press which it has been able to influence in its behalf. Reports of drunken disturbances have been created where none occurred, and drinking places have been multiplied by false reports where no such increase took place. That the case has been misrepresented by the press and the liquor element has been proved beyond a doubt by the temperance press. It was predicted when the anti-canteen law was passed that just such a campaign would be resorted to by the liquor interests for the repeal of the law, and this action is one of the first steps in that campaign. CHINA’S quick agreement to the indemnity demand, after the amount was decided upon, is reported to have been due to the threat that the powers, after a certain date, would impose upon China a fine of $1,000,000 a day until the indemnity was agreed to. The form of the guarantee which China is to give for the payment has not yet been determined upon. The Chinese court is still objecting to the matter of interest on the indemnity. It has been decided to transfer gradually to the Chinese officials of Peking, during the month of June, the administration of the city. Considerable numbers of the foreign troops are moving toward the seaboard. A dispatch from Shanghai states that Boxers are again making trouble in all districts where there are no foreign troops. One report states that on May 26 a fierce fight was raging near Tien-tsin between Boxers and native Catholic converts. AMERICANS are getting control of French corporations in a way that is very displeasing to the general French public. Many French industries have gone into the hands of trusts after the example of American combinations, but the latest combination, which has just been made public, intends to control absolutely the surface and underground passenger traffic of the city of Paris. These various passenger-traffic concerns have voted to head their respective boards with men representing American capital. This preponderance of American interests in Paris passenger traffic was effected by secret and gradual buying of every share of stock offered at the exchange until the people representing American capital had a majority everywhere. THERE seems to be some probability that quarrymen and stone-dressers will gradually be crowded out of their occupation by the use of artificial stone. In the manufacture of this stone, sand is heated and mixed with about 12 per cent. of cement. The mixture is then placed in steel moulds, which are in turn placed inside a large steel cylinder, which is securely closed. Boiling water is then turned in under pressure sufficient to force it thru the sand and cement in the moulds. This slacks the cement, but as the steel moulds do not allow any expansion, the mixture becomes as hard as stone, and is dried under a heavy pressure. The result is a very hard stone, which can be supplied in shapes desired much cheaper than the natural material. THE following extract from an article in the Neuste Wiener Tageblatt, an influential Austrian journal, will show something of the way sentiment is being formed in European nations against the influence and power of the United States: “America is the common enemy of all; an enemy so formidable that each European country must succumb unless leagued with the rest of Europe. Even united Europe will have a hard fight.” The writer of the article from which this is taken was advocating the formation of a European customs league against the United States. This matter is becoming a live question among Europeans, and is a direct outgrowth of the grasping spirit of American capitalists. SEVERAL engagements have occurred in South Africa within the past week, in which both sides have suffered considerably in the loss of men. In two engagements on May 22 and May 25, the British lost 42 killed and 101 wounded. Immediately following these engagements came one near Pretoria in which the British lost, according to report, 46 killed, 80 wounded, 600 prisoners, and six guns. Another engagement is reported near Johannesburg, in which the British lost 174 in killed and wounded. There is a possibility that the last two engagements are confounded reports of the same battle. General Kitchener was planning to hold the Boers in northern Transvaal, and bring the conflict to an end there; but the Boers in small companies have broken thru his cordon and are moving south. Thus the bitter contest bids fair to drag along for months. FIVE men, of whom one was an Indian and two were half-breeds, were hanged to a railroad bridge at Lookout, Modoc County, Cal., on the night of May 30. The men were in the hands of constables who had arrested them for petty stealing, and were being held for examination, when the mob overcame the peace officers and hurried the arrested men away to execution. Governor Gage has offered a reward of $5,000 for the arrest of the lynchers; but the officers have as yet no clue to their identity. THE census bureau has published the first half of the final census report on the population of the United States. The report shows that Rhode Island is the most densely populated State in the Union, having 407 inhabitants to the square mile. Massachusetts comes next with 349 inhabitants to the square mile, and New Jersey third with a little more than 250. THE bodies of thirty-one babes were recently discovered in the cellar of an undertaking establishment in Birmingham, England. This is but another indication of the increased lack of natural affection which was to characterize the last days. How much of this infant slaughtering is going on continually only the Lord Himself can tell, as little of it is ever brought to light. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER has placed at the disposal of a body of prominent medical men $200,000, to be available for immediate expenditure in original scientific research into problems of medicine and hygiene. An association known as the “Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research” will have charge of the expenditure of this money. THE sitting of the Austrian Reichstag on May 30 broke up in open disorder and tumult. The president was wholly unable to preserve even a semblance of order. One party walked out of the house in a body, with the other party denouncing them as traitors to the country. DR. HERZL, the founder of the Jewish Zionist movement, has recently had several audiences with the sultan of Turkey and received from him several decorations, which seems to indicate that the sultan is looking with more favor than formerly upon the Zionist movement. THE national machinists’ strike is still in progress, with accessions to the ranks of those already idle. The machinists have returned to work only in those shops which have granted the demand for a nine-hour day with the same pay as formerly received for ten hours’ work. THE bubonic plague is rapidly spreading in Hongkong. Cases among the Asiatics during the past month have averaged 40 daily and among the Europeans 12 daily. The epidemic now prevailing is attributed to bad drainage. SIR HENRY JOHNSTONE, British commissioner in Uganda, Africa, has discovered a variety of giraffe having five horns. It is named helladotherium, is part ox, part giraffe, and was thought to have been extinct for centuries. THE TAFT commission for the Philippines have asked for 600 school teachers to come to the Islands and take up school work. Of this number 100 have already been selected and their sailing time appointed. THE Turkish Government is reported to have rescinded its action in reference to typewriters, and will now admit them. This action was taken in response to the protests of the foreign embassies. TURKEY has made her first payment on the cruiser which the Cramps Shipbuilding Company is to build for her. Turkey is in the race of war preparation along with all the rest of the world. A REPORT from Mexico states that during the fire which has been raging on the isthmus of Tehuantepec recently, 70 persons were surrounded by the flames and burned to death. UNITED STATES Minister Edwin H. Conger has announced that he will sail again for China on July 7, which is the date of the expiration of his two months’ leave of absence. THE Turkish Government has issued an order that Armenians who become naturalized citizens of either America or Russia shall not be allowed to return to Turkish territory. A REPORT from Russia states that 40 men were shot to death and 150 others wounded in a conflict between soldiers and strikers at Alexandrovsky, on May 20. TWENTY-ONE miners perished in the burning of a mine in Waldenburg, Prussia, on May 25.