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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 20, 1902

— President Roosevelt has issued a proclamation opening to settlement, on July 17 next, the Fort Hall Indian reservation in Idaho.

— The German steamship “Sakkarah,” having on board $1,500,000 in gold which was being sent by the Chilian government to Hamburg, is reported lost off the Chilian coast. The fate of the crew is unknown.

— By two opinions rendered by Chief Justice Fuller, of the United States Supreme Court, May 5, the right of transit across the United States or any portion thereof is denied to Chinese traveling from one foreign country to another.

— Reports coming from Port au Prince, Hayti, indicate that a condition of affairs little short of anarchy prevails in the Haytian republic. There is almost continuous rioting at Port au Prince, business is suspended, and a revolutionary force is marching on the capital from Cape Haytien.

— A Brazilian aeronaut named Severo, the inventor of an air ship similar to that by which his countryman, Santos Dumont, has acquired fame, met a sudden and violent death while navigating his machine near Paris, France, May 12. The balloon exploded when about 1,500 feet above the ground, and the unfortunate inventor was dashed to the pavement of the city beneath him.

— The question of the choice to be made between Nicaragua and the Isthmus of Panama in selecting a route for the interoceanic canal, has been greatly affected by the recent seismic disturbances and volcanic outbreaks in that quarter of the earth, and it now seems probable that the Panama route will be the one eventually chosen. There are several volcanoes along the proposed Nicaraguan route, which have been more or less active within recent years, and the risk to the canal from such a source would be very great.

— An explosion of naphtha in a freight car at Sheridan, near Pittsburg, Pa., May 13, scattered the blazing fluid over a crowd of people, burning over twenty to death on the spot, and injuring several hundred more, fifty of whom, it is reported, cannot survive. The disaster was caused by the collision of freight cars in the depot yard with the naphtha train, causing the naphtha to leak out, an explosion following when the fluid came in contact with a neighboring switch lamp. A crowd collected at the spot, and without warning another explosion took place, with the result stated.

— The Shanghai correspondent of the London Times writes concerning the situation in China, that from all sides reports are coming of increased taxation, which “is being levied, according to the usual Chinese system along the line of least resistance, without regard for political or economic considerations, without method, justice, or discrimination. The inevitable result is to stimulate anti-foreign feeling, since the taxation is declared to be for the purpose of the payment of the foreign indemnity, and the amount required for this purpose is steadily increasing with the continued fall in silver.”

— The anticipated strike of anthracite coal miners in Pennsylvania was inaugurated May 12, and about 150,000 miners are idle.

— The price of beef cattle has reached the highest point in twenty years. The government, through its attorney-general, is proceeding with the prosecution of the beef trust.

— A report from the Baltic provinces of Russia states that drought and frosts have greatly damaged the crops, and the absence of grass has obliged the peasants to feed their cattle on old straw taken from the roofs of their cottages. Enormous crowds of starving peasants are coming by train loads into Moscow, in search of some means of subsistence.

— The statement is made by the Austro-Hungarian minister of foreign affairs that the Triple Alliance, which expires in May, 1903, will be renewed by the powers composing it — Austria, Italy, and Germany.

— To certain labor organizations in Minneapolis who protested recently against a proposed visit of the Chinese ambassador, Wu Ting-fang, to that city, the latter directed these words in reply: “In these days of international intercourse, laboring men, irrespective of nationality, should fraternize with one another, and not try to cut one another’s throats. Above all, they should not forget that there is such a thing as the golden rule.” This leads the New York Independent to inquire, “Now which is the pagan, and which the Christian?”

— To Bishop O’Gorman, who is now in Rome as a member of the American “mission” to the Vatican headed by Governor Taft, the pope recently, in a private interview, expressed himself as being much pleased to see the bishop acting in that capacity, and also confided to the latter his gratification at the establishment of the mission by the American government. He is anxious, he said, to give it the reception it deserves. Incidentally it transpires also, from what was said between these two, that Archbishop Ireland is mainly responsible for bringing the United States into this compromising and humiliating attitude toward the papal see.

— Reports are coming from Europe of a newly devised cannon which is believed to have almost unlimited possibilities as a weapon of war. It is known as the electro-magnetic gun, and is the invention of Prof. K. Birkeland, a Norwegian physicist, who has recently been giving demonstrations of its efficiency before military officials in Berlin. “Theoretically,” says a report coming from that city, “Professor Birkeland’s gun can throw a projectile weighing two tons a distance of ninety miles, or even farther, by sufficiently prolonging the tube. The principle upon which the gun acts,” it is further stated, “has not been made public, but it is known that the projectile is expelled from an ordinary cast-iron tube thickly wrapped with copper wire. This tube can, of course, be made more cheaply than the cannon now in use. No explosive gases result from the discharge of the new gun. Professor Birkeland’s invention has created intense interest among technical observers, some of whom are of the opinion that the new gun signifies a greater revolution in fighting material than that brought about by the discovery of gunpowder.”

— It is estimated that 30,000 lives were lost by the volcanic outburst on Martinique which overwhelmed the city of St. Pierre, May 8. On the neighboring island of St. Vincent the volcano of La Soufrière burst into sudden activity about the same time, and about 1,800 lives are reported lost there. Congress voted $400,000 for relief work on these islands, and appropriations for the same purpose have been made by many European governments. Professor Heilprin, of Philadelphia, who is reputed to be an authority on geology and volcanology, is quoted as saying that there is danger that the reef islands of the West Indies, of which Martinique and St. Vincent are examples, will collapse and sink into the sea as the result of these eruptions, since vast cavities must be left in the earth by the throwing out of such immense quantities of matter through the craters, and a settling of the overlying earth into these caverns must be the natural result. The famous boiling lake which has long been a natural curiosity on the island of Dominica, which lies close to Martinique, has disappeared, and in its place only a column of steam and vapor remains.