Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 30, 1902

— Rich gold fields are reported to have been discovered recently near Thunder Mountain, Idaho.

— Fourteen hundred and sixty-seven coal miners in the United States lost their lives in the mines during 1901.

— Mgr. Falconio, the present papal delegate to Canada, has been appointed “apostolic delegate” to the United States.

— Cholera is reported to be on the decline in Egypt, after having killed, according to a late estimate, 25,734 people in that country.

— Three fast gunboats will be sent by Russia to put a stop to seal poaching by American and Japanese seal catchers off the coast of Siberia.

— Anarchy is reported to be rapidly spreading in Macedonia, and there is general uneasiness among the peaceful portion of the population.

— Cold and wet weather in Germany has greatly damaged the grain crops there, and American grain will be called for in large quantities to supply the shortage.

— The South African Boers, through Generals Botha, Delarey, and DeWet, have issued a general appeal to the outside world for help to relieve the distress due to the general devastation of their country during the late war.

— There is fighting still in the Philippines, the Moros tribes of Mindanao refusing to submit to the authority of the United States, and believing themselves unconquerable. Several Moro forts have recently been captured by the American troops.

— Kansas farmers, who something over twenty years ago were accustomed to burn corn in their stoves, will this winter resort to this old-time fuel on account of the scarcity of coal. Corn will be plentiful there, and there is an abundance of alfalfa for feeding stock.

— It is reported that Chicago beef packers, alarmed at President Roosevelt’s attitude toward the trusts, and fearing that the power of the federal government will be turned against them, have decided not to form the combine which was to have been carried into effect this month.

— President Palma, of the Cuban republic, has made an informal demand for the withdrawal of the remaining American troops in Cuba. The United States government has refused to comply with the demand on the ground that Cuban affairs are not yet in a settled condition.

— A careful analysis of the death rate in Great Britain, published by Knowledge, in London, shows that the decline in the rate is entirely among children. It is increasing among older persons. Between the ages of 45 and 55 the rate has increased 6 per cent, between 55 and 65 the increase is 12 per cent. Modern sanitary improvement saves the lives of children, but the strain of modern life increases the death rate of older folks.

— Violent earthquakes, causing the destruction of several towns and the loss of hundreds of lives, are reported from Kashgar, in Russian Turkestan.

— The continuance of the strike in the anthracite coal region has of late been marked by outbreaks of violence on the part of the strikers, directed against non-union workmen in the mines. The sheriff in Lackawanna County, Pa., sent an appeal to the governor for troops. Order is maintained only by the presence of a large force of militia.

— The United States government has sent a protest to Europe, Great Britain joining in the action, against the severe persecution to which the Jews are subjected in Rumania. Rumania has assumed a defiant attitude in the matter, and as the use of force in connection with the protest is not contemplated, the persecution of the Jews in that country will continue.

— There is trouble again between Great Britain and Venezuela over the boundary-line question, both countries claiming possession of Patos Island, lying near the mouth of the Orinoco River. Great Britain has long claimed the island, and the dispute was started by a protest from Venezuela when the British flag was raised as a protection to the inhabitants against the Venezuelan revolutionists. There is a possibility that the United States may be drawn into the dispute.

— President Roosevelt has been obliged to abandon the concluding portion of a trip he was making through the northwest, and on September 23, at Indianapolis, submitted to a slight surgical operation for the removal of an abscess which had developed on his leg as a result of the accident through which he passed recently at Pittsfield, Mass., when a trolley car collided with the carriage in which he was riding. After the operation the president returned to Washington.

— At a large meeting of the National Baptist Association (colored) in Birmingham, Ala., September 19, a false alarm of “fire,” which was raised in the building where the audience was gathered, precipitated a panic, and the number of exits from the building being insufficient for such an emergency, the weaker ones were thrown down and trampled underfoot in the mad rush of people through the aisles, the result being that 116 of the number in the building were found dead after the panic was over, the majority having apparently died from suffocation. Many more were seriously injured.

— Several columns of newspaper space have been given in Chicago dailies to advertising the supposed efficacy of prayers to “St. Vito” for protection against impending ills. A small boy named Carlo was bitten by a dog in August last, and began to pray to “St. Vito” to protect him from hydrophobia. Now the wounds have healed, and the boy has taken a vow never to eat meat on Monday (the day he received the bite), and also to offer a prayer to “St. Vito” each Monday at eleven o’clock. The hold of the Catholic Church upon the press in this country is shown by this and frequent like instances of advertising Catholic dogmas and superstitions in the leading American dailies.