News and Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1901

—Mme. Dreyfus has gone to Nice, France, to pass the winter. Her husband will soon join her.

—Great Britain's war office refuses to issue further permits for newspaper correspondents in South Africa.

—By the recent burning of an office building in Washington, 80,000 pension claims were destroyed, besides claims pending before the Treasury Department and the patent office.

—The schoolboys of the country have contributed $60,000 for a United States battle-ship, to be called “The American Boy.” The Secretary of the Navy suggests, however, that the money be used “for a sailors' national home in Washington.”

—Three more Stanford University (Cal.) professors have resigned (making five in all), and the loss of many students is feared. However, Harvard professors are on their way to fill the vacancies, and 500 of the students have expressed confidence in the management.

—More than 100,000 tons of soft coal are soon to be shipped from Baltimore and Philadelphia, to Halifax and the ports of New Brunswick and Newfoundland. The strange part of it is that “a large quantity of this coal will be delivered in the neighborhood of the soft coal mines of Nova Scotia, the existence of which has been the chief excuse for our protective tariff duty on coal of this character.”

—It is reported that “the Congressional investigation at West Point probed a good deal deeper than the military investigation,” which preceded it. It is strange that people should become so excited over the existence of hazing (with its attendant fighting and cruelty) at West Point Academy, when the very object of that institution is to teach young men how most scientifically to fight, and even to kill, other men.

—President Diaz, of Mexico, is ill, yet able to transact business of importance.

—Bryan's new weekly paper, the Commoner, made its first appearance the 23d inst.

—All the classes at West Point Academy have “unanimously decided to abolish hazing.”

—Celebrations of the two hundredth anniversary of the kingdom of Prussia began the 17th inst.

—Johann Faber, founder of the famous Faber lead-pencil factory in Germany, died at Nuremberg, the 17th inst.

—Montreal had a $4,000,000 fire in its business district, January 23. Among the nineteen large buildings consumed was the Board of Trade. It was impossible to control the flames.

—Potato-bread is used extensively in Germany as a horse food. The potatoes, after being stewed and mashed, are mixed with an equal part of meal, made into four-pound loaves, and baked.

—A new process has been discovered in England whereby paper is to be manufactured from common grass. It is said that paper thus obtained is “desirable for drawing and tracing, because of its remarkable suppleness and strength.”

—According to the Financial Chronicle, the railroad gross earnings for 1900, on 113 roads that have reported, “show an increase of almost $100,000,000, or nearly nine per cent; and it is estimated that full reports will show an increase of $125,000,000.” The gross earnings for the year 1900 exceed those of 1894 by fifty-five per cent.

—The Federal Steel Company, the steel trust managed by J. Pierpont Morgan, “has acquired control of the American Steel and Wire Company, the competing trust, of which John W. Gates is president. The purchase of its stock was manipulated by the Morgan syndicate, under cover of a disturbance in the stock market, produced for the purpose.”

—While she was being initiated into the Alpha Theta Mu Society of the Wichita (Kan.) high school, Miss Jessie Lewelling, daughter of former Governor Lewelling, was branded for life with the Greek letters “A T M,” which stand for the name of the society. The characters were burned on her forehead “with pure nitrate of silver, the acid penetrating the flesh to the depth of a quarter of an inch.” She was thus hazed because of “her refusal to go through with certain ‘funny formations,’ as they say at West Point,” in connection with her initiation. It is said that the young women “were ignorant of the character of the chemical they were using.” It is a fair example of the cruel hazing that goes on in many schools and universities throughout the land.

—It is reported, from England, that “the Tammany ring in New York are in despair, for Mr. Robert Barr is to expose their iniquities in a two-hundred-thousand-word novel.” But, according to the New York Times, another work, entitled “History of Tammany Hall,” will be of far more importance. It has been written by Gustave Myers, “who for the last five years has been industriously engaged in examining every court record, legislative proceeding, and city document which could throw light upon the working of the society.” Again, “not the least interesting feature of the forthcoming publication, is the difficulty that Mr. Myers has encountered in attempting to secure a publisher. One well-known house, while praising his book and the motive that inspired its writing, replied: ‘We should hardly feel warranted in locking horns with Tammany.’ The appearance of the book will be due to the efforts of a few public-spirited citizens.”

—Queen Victoria died at the Osborne House, Isle of Wight, January 22. Her son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, is now Edward VII., king of England. Nearly all the world is mourning the loss of Victoria. The flags of England and her colonies, and thousands of American flags, floated at half-mast as soon as it became known that she was dead. Born May 24, 1819, Victoria succeeded to the throne at the age of eighteen, June 20, 1837. She was married Feb. 10, 1840, to Prince Albert, of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and bore nine children during the twenty-two years of her wedded life. She became a widow in 1862, and was proclaimed empress of India in 1876. She outlived all the men who were officials of the kingdom when she became queen, and expired in the sixty-fourth year of her reign—“the longest single reign known in the annals of the kingdom.” She was opposed to the war in South Africa, and, without doubt, the continuance of that war hastened the time of her death. Having stood “in that fierce light which beats upon a throne, and blackens every blot,” for nearly sixty-four years, during all those many years she “has given Europe its purest court,” and has been happily described as “the queenliest of women and the most womanly of queens.”

—Verdi, the great composer of music, is dying in Milan, Italy. He was born Oct. 10, 1813.

—General Plaza has been elected president of Ecuador, defeating General Garcia by a majority of 40,000 votes.

—The emperor of Japan will visit Europe next spring. He will first visit the czar, and expects to reach Vienna in May.

—Elisha Gray, the well-known electrical inventor, died suddenly at Newtonville, Mass., January 23, at the age of sixty-five.

—A railroad combine has been formed of the Great Northern, Milwaukee and St. Paul, Northern Pacific, and the Erie, making a new and powerful system from ocean to ocean.

—The reapportionment bill was signed by President McKinley the 17th inst., and is now law. It fixes the number of representatives in Congress, after March 3, 1903, at 386.

—The county attorney recently dismissed the charge against Mrs. Carrie Nation, of Wichita, Kan. (for breaking saloon fixtures), on the ground of insanity. Since then, assisted by two women, she has destroyed $2,000 worth of Wichita saloon property.

—Russian papers favor the disposition of the United States to make the Nicaragua Canal an American canal, for the Americans. One, in particular, says: “During the last half-century Russia and the United States have developed their [maritime] powers, and they can afford to tear the nets which British diplomacy has woven around them. The victory which the Americans have won in this case can give us only satisfaction.” And again: “Since the war of the Revolution, Russia's sympathies have always been on the side of the republic.” It is rather queer that a despotic government can sympathize with a republic.

—The center of population of the United States is still moving westward. Since the census of 1890 it has moved fourteen miles to the west. In 1790 the center of population was approximately 25 miles east of Baltimore, Md.; in 1800, 18 miles west of Baltimore; in 1810, 40 miles northwest by west of Washington, D. C.; in 1820, 16 miles north of Woodstock, Va.; in 1830, 19 miles southwest of Moorfield, W. Va.; in 1840, 16 miles south of Clarksburg, W. Va.; in 1850, 23 miles southeast of Parkersburg, W. Va.; in 1860, 20 miles south of Chillicothe, Ohio; in 1870, 48 miles northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio; in 1880, 8 miles southwest of Cincinnati; in 1890, 20 miles east of Columbus, Ind.; and, in 1900, 7 miles southeast of Columbus.

—A military spyglass has just been invented, through which a man may observe the actions of the enemy, from behind a rampart, without danger. By means of prisms the light is deflected in such a manner that, although the officer's head is lower than the protecting fortification, he may easily see what is going on outside, and avoid being made a mark for the enemy's bullets. This spyglass may also be used by a person hidden behind a tree, in which case the observer merely “allows the ends of the instrument to project behind the sides of the tree.” The instrument weighs about one and one-half pounds and magnifies ten times, embracing a linear field of sixty-five yards. It has been tested by usage in the Swiss army.

—Baron Wilhelm Rothschild, head of the famous family of bankers, died at Frankfort, Germany, January 25. He was a rigidly orthodox Jew. The real family name is simply Anselm, the name Rothschild being applied to the family on account of there being a red shield on the front of their house of business at 52 Judengasse, Frankfort. The wealth of the Rothschilds has been estimated at two thousand millions of dollars ($2,000,000,000); yet this even falls far short, it is thought, of the real value of their wealth. Since the year 1815 the Rothschilds have raised for Great Britain alone more than $1,000,000,000; for Austria, $250,000,000; for Prussia, $200,000,000; for France, $400,000,000; for Italy, $300,000,000; for Russia, $125,000,000; for Brazil, $70,000,000; and in 1895 they took $15,000,000 of the United States loan. All the Rothschild banks work in harmony, absolute secrecy being their rule of action; they divide all profits, and stand by one another under all circumstances, holding family councils on all important matters. Before the death of Alphonse de Rothschild, in Paris, and of William, in Frankfort, there were eleven Rothschild barons. The nine remaining are situated as follows: Nathaniel, Alfred, and Leopold, in London; Gustav, Edward, Adolphe, and James, in Paris; Nathaniel, a baron of the Austrian Empire, in Vienna; Nathan, in London, who is regarded “the greatest of the Rothschilds.” The power wielded by this family has been and still is something enormous, whole nations even bowing to their decisions.