p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 28, 1904

Current Mention

— Seven men were killed by a boiler explosion in a sawmill at Newbern, N. C., January 18.

— Six men were killed and six others injured by the breaking of a large fly-wheel in one of the Cambria steel mills at Johnstown, Pa., January 21.

— A cloudburst destroyed more than a hundred buildings in Bloemfontein, South Africa, January 17. Thirty persons were drowned, and several hundred were left homeless.

— Reports from the British expedition into Tibet state that the Tibetans have assumed a hostile attitude, and the priests threaten to appeal to Russia if the expedition continues to advance.

— A serious Hottentot rebellion is in progress in German Southwest Africa. The lives of white settlers and missionaries in the affected district are believed to be in jeopardy.

— A dispatch from Montevideo says that a revolution of serious dimensions has broken out in the Department of Maldonado, and that a state of siege has been proclaimed throughout the entire republic of Uruguay.

— Stephen Joice, of McLennan County, Texas, recently made affidavit that he was 148 years old, having been born in Louisiana province under the dominion of Spain in 1756. If this is true, he is the oldest man in the world.

— Emperor William is still troubled by the disease which some time ago appeared in his throat, according to late reports from Berlin. The emperor’s sister, Princess Charlotte, is suffering from an ailment of a malignant nature, presumably cancer.

— A bill to fine people for not voting has been introduced in the New York Legislature. It imposes a fine of not less than five dollars nor more than ten dollars upon legally qualified voters who remain away from the polls whenever State or county officers or members of Congress are to be elected.

— It is reported that the British government will push the project of the Cape to Cairo Railway during the present year, and will build about 20,000 miles of railway in Africa before the present undertaking is completed. A million Chinese laborers have been imported from China and India, which are to be sent back to those countries at the end of three years.

— The director of the Kansas State employment bureau, in his annual report recently submitted, says farm laborers in that State are leaving the farms and going into the cities to work, and that men will have to be imported to do ordinary farm work. The girls likewise, he says, are leaving the farms because they dislike to be called servants.

— The prospect of war in the far East is believed to be slightly less threatening than was the case a short time ago. It is reported that France has informed Russia that her attitude in the event of war will be one of neutrality, even though Great Britain should come to the aid of Japan. Japan is continuing her preparations for war with unabated vigor. The action of the United States in concluding a treaty with China concerning trade privileges in Manchuria without obtaining Russia’s consent is commented on by Russian papers as being an unfriendly act, and in other European journals the relation of the United States to the far Eastern controversy is treated as a matter of much importance.

— A judge of the Federal court in Denver, Colo., has refused to interfere in the controversy between miners and mine owners in that State, which has led to much rioting, and in some places to a complete paralysis of civil government. A habeas corpus action was brought by the miners’ union to secure the release of one of their number from the military “bull pen” in which he is confined, he having been placed there without a warrant. The judge of the Federal court in which the action was brought ruled that the Federal government could not interfere with a State in the execution of its laws, and that the use of the militia by the governor of a State is proper and binding upon him whenever he finds the assistance of the military power necessary to enforce the laws.

— General Nelson A. Miles, who for a number of years was head of the military forces of the United States, in a speech at a mass meeting in Washington in the interests of arbitration, January 12, called attention to the present world-wide preparations for war. He said: “In this enlightened age of progress and intelligent, refined civilization we would be glad to believe that the burdens and dangers of war have been lessened; yet, strange as it may seem, there never has been a time in the world’s history when so much wealth was squandered in preparation for war, nor when so many millions of trained, skilled, and disciplined men, armed with the most destructive weapons, were taken from the avenues of peaceful industry, as at the present time.”

— The year’s record of disaster by storm and flood is beginning early. The village of Moundsville, in western central Alabama was almost obliterated by a tornado which struck the place near midnight, January 22, thirty-eight of its people being killed, and twelve others fatally injured. Floods and floating ice in the tributaries of the Ohio River have caused property losses to the extent of about $1,000,000, the situation at Pittsburg and vicinity being for a time very serious. There was a sudden flood in the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland, Ohio, January 22, caused by the breaking of an ice gorge. Several large steamers were swept from their moorings and carried against a bridge, vessels and bridge being seriously damaged.