Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 6, 1902

— John D. Long, secretary of the Navy, retired from office, April 30.

— The United States battle ship “Illinois,” in command of Admiral Crowninshield, sailed from New York, April 30, for England, to participate in the approaching coronation ceremonies centering at Westminster.

— It is reported that the managers of the St. Louis World’s Fair have petitioned Congress to postpone the exposition to the year 1904, as the time is seemingly too short to prepare for such an enterprise before that date.

— Two of the largest ships of the White Star line of transatlantic vessels, the “Celtic” and the “Cymric,” will, it is announced, make Friday their day of sailing hereafter, in defiance of the nautical superstition that no ship should ever leave port on a Friday.

— The annual session of the American Congress of Tuberculosis will be held in New York City, May 14–16. This congress has been officially recognized by the federal government, which will be represented at the session, as will also the government of British Columbia.

— A final decision from the Boers who are in arms against Great Britain, respecting the question of peace on the terms which are under discussion, is expected to be made May 25. The proposed terms of peace are now being talked over among the Boer commandos.

— This instructive item on the subject of tight lacing, comes from Lorain, Ohio, under date of April 28: “Frankie Friend, aged twenty-seven, of Norwalk, got off a car from Cleveland last night, and became faint and weak. She was assisted to the waiting room by two women, and later was sent to a physician’s office. She was dead when placed on a couch. A post mortem to-day showed her heart to be entirely out of place on account of her corset, which was ten sizes too small.”

— According to the best information obtainable on the subject of church-school education in Russia, it appears that the orthodox Russian Church has in its elementary schools 1,500,000 children, about forty in each school, and the average cost of maintenance for each school is $105 a year. Above ninety per cent of the teachers are uneducated, and receive next to nothing for their services. The schoolhouses are huts, and neither books, pens, nor ink is furnished the pupils.

— Seven professors and lecturers in the Catholic University at Washington, D. C., have been dropped from the faculty for lack of funds.

— A patient in the College Hospital at Saginaw, Mich., was recently treated for a fractured skull by having a piece of a dog’s skull grafted on in the place of a piece of his own skull which had been removed. He is reported to be recovering.

— A false alarm of fire in a large cigar factory in Philadelphia, caused a panic among the hundreds of girl employees in the place, and in the rush to escape, eight were killed, three others fatally injured, and nearly forty hurt more or less seriously.

— A police judge of St. Joseph, Mo., has declared in favor of “liberal” Sunday laws, such as will allow of Sunday baseball, although he is a member of the Baptist Church. There is just now quite a general effort on the part of representatives of churches and societies favoring Sunday laws to secure their enforcement wherever there is an apparent intention on the part of baseball clubs to play Sunday games.

— At the annual dinner of the Colonial Institute, in London, England, April 30, the proposition for a grand combination of Great Britain and all her colonies against the rest of the world, for defense and trade, was put forward by Colonel Denison, of Canada, and was received with great enthusiasm. He proposed a duty of five or ten per cent on all foreign goods at every British port, the different ports of the empire maintaining free trade between themselves. Two hundred and forty colonial representatives were present at the dinner.

— An air-ship contest is a projected feature of the coming world’s fair to be held at St. Louis, and to stimulate enterprise in the invention of machines of this sort a prize of $100,000 is to be awarded the winner of the contest. The task to be accomplished by the contestants will be that of propelling their air ships over an aerial course shaped like a figure eight, the bounds of which will be indicated by captive balloons. From one end of the course to the other the distance will be ten miles. It is expected that at least one hundred and fifty air ships will enter the contest.

— The great transatlantic steamship combine managed by the Morgan syndicate of millionaires includes six lines, American and British, owning 118 ships, and prospectively three other lines, owning 106 ships; besides which a “working agreement” has been made with two leading German lines, owning 254 ships. The combine will own or control leading railway lines in the United States and Great Britain, and will thus have in its hands a through freight line controlling a very large proportion of all the freight business in the two countries, and the competition of “tramp” steamships which now handle a large amount of freight will be almost wholly eliminated on the North Atlantic. It is now definitely admitted that the White Star line is in the combine, and the Cunard line, if it is not already in the deal, will no doubt be forced in soon. About $12,000,000 worth of stock in the new organization goes to Mr. Morgan for his trouble in getting it started.

— The present attitude of Italy toward Tripoli has made the sultan of Turkey fear that Italy has designs on that territory, and measures are being taken by him for its defense.

— An explosion occurred on the Holland submarine boat “Fulton,” while it was en route from Brooklyn to Norfolk, resulting in injuries to five of those who were on board.

— A passenger train on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway was ditched by spreading rails near Medill, Mo., April 29. Four persons were killed, and twenty-three were injured.

— King Leopold, of Belgium, has signed a concession granting a right of way through Belgian territory in Africa to the railway which is being constructed from Cairo to Cape Town.

— Recently, for the first time since the papacy ceased to control the city of Rome, the former appealed to the Italian government asking its aid to secure the arrest of three officials of the Vatican who had stolen $80,000 from the Vatican treasury.

— Late dispatches from Manila state that the situation in Luzon as regards the cholera plague shows no improvement, though the disease is confined mainly to natives and Chinese. In Manila there have been 555 cases and 449 deaths, while the provinces report 1,599 cases and 1,169 deaths.

— The farmers of Kansas, says a Topeka dispatch, intend to throttle the grain trust, by a scheme which will enable them to fix their own prices on wheat and corn. The plan is that each farmer shall list his crops with the secretary of the Farmers’ Co-operative Association, who will have a monopoly of the entire crop, if the farmers of the State co-operate, and will name the price at which the products of the farms will be sold.

— A dispatch from Troy, N. Y., says it is expected that a great gun now being constructed at the Watervliet arsenal, which, when completed, will be the largest in the world, weighing 150 tons, will be ready for service by June 1. It will be mounted at Fort Hamilton, commanding New York harbor. It has a muzzle diameter of sixteen inches, and is expected to throw a shell a distance of twenty-one miles, though its ability to do this is disputed by Krupp, the great German gun maker, who says its range will not be more than fifteen miles. It will be mounted on a “disappearing” carriage.