Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 23, 1902

— Seventeen miners were killed by an explosion in the Big Four mine of the Algoma Coal and Coke Company at Bluefield, W. Va., September 15, by an explosion of gas and gunpowder in the mine.

— A new Boxer organization in China, known as the “Lantern” society, has been formed with the avowed purpose of exterminating all foreigners and native Christians. They are operating in the province of Szechuen, where it is reported that over three hundred native converts to Christianity have been massacred.

— The Vatican is reported to be seriously disturbed by the news that the czar, when he returns the visit of King Victor Emmanuel, of Italy, will not call on the pope. The czar is reported to be displeased with the pope because the latter withdrew the papal nuncio from The Hague Peace Conference because he had not been invited to take part in the proceedings. It would be “very awkward” for the Vatican to be thus passed over by the czar.

— Forest fires in Oregon and Washington, which were started the second week in September, raged with great fury and destructiveness for several days, devastating forests and burning up towns in Multnomah and Clackamas Counties, Oregon, and in Cowlitz County, Washington. It is reported that over fifty lives were lost in the burned districts.

— A member of the Illinois Woman’s Press Association, named Barnes, was accidentally shot at a Wisconsin summer resort, September 16, says a Rockford, Ill., telegram. She was wearing a hat, which a hunter mistook for a bird. She is now in a Chicago hospital. Whether the hat or the hunter was most at fault is not stated.

— The attempt of the mine owners in Pennsylvania to reopen their mines with nonunion labor seems likely to lead to a strike on the part of the labor unions whose members are operatives on the railways of the coal trust. It is believed these men — engineers, yard masters, firemen, brakemen, etc. — will refuse to haul any coal not mined by members of the miners’ union.

— A report from Bainbridge, Ohio, states that Copperas Mountain, the highest elevation in the range of hills bordering Paint Creek, is assuming the characteristics of an active volcano. Dense smoke and sulphurous gases are issuing from fissures on the mountain side, and the slate which covers one side of the mountain has become red hot. Farmers residing in Paint Creek Valley are apprehensive of a disastrous eruption.

— A young man named Gosse, the son of an English clergyman in Somersetshire, says a London dispatch, was found dead in his room, September 16, having committed suicide after reading the novel, “The Mighty Atom,” by Marie Corelli, the most striking scene in which is a portrayal of a suicide. A letter left by him explained the nature of his death. This case, says the dispatch, is the second one of imitative suicide in that country caused by reading that book. Parents, do you know what books your children are reading? and do you know how their minds are being affected by the unhealthy pictures portrayed in novels, and depicted upon the stage of the modern theater?

— The “First Church of Christ, Scientist,” at Philadelphia, and incidentally the “Christian Science” church in general, received a decided set back by a decision rendered in the common pleas court in Philadelphia, by Judge Arnold, September 15. The church had applied to the court for a charter, which was refused by the judge, who in giving his opinion said: “The charter applied for in this case covers a double purpose — a church and a business. We have power to grant a charter for a church, but we have no authority to grant a charter for a corporation for profit — that is, a business corporation.” Continuing, the judge quoted from the text-book of Mary Baker G. Eddy instructions to Christian Scientists to sell and circulate the publications of Mrs. Eddy, failure to do the same being sufficient cause for expulsion from membership in the church. “This shows,” said Judge Arnold, “that the so-called church is a corporation for profit, organized to enforce the sale of Mrs. Eddy’s books by its members, which is a matter of business, and not of religion. As the courts have no power to charter such a corporation, the application for a charter is refused.”

— The end of the civil war in Venezuela is apparently in sight, the revolutionists having been victorious at all points. President Castro has retreated to his capital, and a final battle is expected to occur in the hills surrounding Caracas.

— Testimony given at St. Louis, Mo., September 16, by Thomas L. O’Sullivan, a meat and live-stock inspector in that city, affirms that meat which has been sold by packers recently was adulterated with decayed meat chemically treated to hide its condition, unhealthy kidneys ground up, and other unwholesome substances. Similar testimony was elicited from authoritative sources a few years ago when there was an investigation of the “embalmed” beef charge made against the packers by General Miles. It seems that testimony of this sort comes to the surface at every investigation that is made into the meat-packing business; from which the only conclusion to be drawn is that the disposal of decayed and diseased meat by the packers to the retailers, and by the latter to their meat-eating customers, is a regular part of the business. The person who would be healthy must not eat diseased meat, and he who would escape eating diseased meat must discard meat altogether.