News and Editorial Notes
By Editor
Articles on Higher Criticism close with this issue. There have been requests to put them in permanent form, and this is under consideration. The "seventy years" captivity predicted by Jeremiah, over which there have been doubts and difficulties in the minds of Bible students, is made clear in the article on page 7. We trust it will be studied by students of prophecy. There left us July 11 to take a position in the editorial and literary department of the International Publishing House at College View, Neb., Brother G. W. Erfurth, who has for some time been connected with the Pacific Press. Our sister publishing house will find him an efficient helper, a Christian gentleman, a devoted, whole-souled worker. So has he been among us. May God bless him in his work there. We have received a neat little booklet containing a poem, "The Larger Hope," published some time ago in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. It was suggested by Lord Salisbury's remarks on living and dying nations in a speech before the Primrose League in 1898. The author is Prof. George McCready Price. It is printed by the College Press Print, Loma Linda, Cal., on deckle-edged paper, tied with silk cord, and transparent flowered cover. The poem is an excellent one, and presents a great deal of needed truth for the present time. Prices can be had by addressing the author. Just as we go to press the news of a disastrous fire in Portland, Oregon, reaches us. Five blocks have been swept by the destroying element, and the fire is still spreading. It is expected that the loss will exceed $1,000,000. A serious wreck occurred on the Southern Pacific coast line near Metz, thirty-six miles south of Salinas, July 12. Cause—too high speed in rounding a curve. Both engineer and fireman were killed. Many of the passengers were injured. Most of them were in their berths. Among the many air accidents of late is that of the German dirigible balloon Erhloch, which collapsed July 13 at Leichlingen, falling a distance of 1,000 feet, killing its five occupants instantly. The cause was the bursting of a benzin tank. The day before, Captain Charles S. Rolls, the aviator who flew over the straits of Dover and returned, was killed. City of the Sun.—Prof. Pierre Rovada of Milan has a new plan for towns which he calls cities of the sun. Each block is to be circular. A great public building occupies the center. Radiating from that are twelve great avenues. Sweeping around nearer the circumference are two great circles; the segments between the avenues in the two outer circles are built with large blocks of houses, airy, sunny, and hygienic in every respect. From the inner circle to the center the sections of the circle are smaller and are to be arranged in the form of parks. It certainly is a splendid suggestion. Such a city as that, with entire absence of everything which would tend to engender disease and sickness, would be a wonderful blessing to the race. But this is too much to hope for in the present commercial conditions of the world. THE National Association for the study and prevention of tuberculosis have issued a warning which ought to be heralded far and wide. In a bulletin sent out under date of June 23 of this year they declare that over fifteen million dollars annually is poured into the coffers of those who exploit and advertise fake consumption cures, and worse still, most of this money is paid by those who can least afford it. The National Association has investigated several hundred so-called cures and treatments for tuberculosis now being advertised throughout the country, and finds that more than three million dollars a year is spent in soliciting the patronage of the public. On examination it is found that the great majority of these cures contain harmful and habit-forming drugs such as morphine, opium, and chloroform. None of them will cure consumption; and the writer says—what the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has emphasized for years—that the only cure for this disease that has ever been discovered is the combination of fresh air, rest, and wholesome food; and we would add to that, abundance of sunshine. All of the cures that attempt to destroy the tubercle bacillus without these or to stop progress of the disease in some mysterious way are branded as frauds and impositions. They mention three classes of cures: In the first class are included devices and drugs which can be bought for any sum ranging from ten cents to five dollars in a drug-store. The United States Department of Agriculture has just issued a bulletin in which some of the most used of these drugs and remedies are analyzed and condemned. The second class of cures include the "institutes," "professors," or companies of "doctors," that is, "cures" and "institutes" and "professors" and "doctors" who, for a consideration, guarantee to cure consumption by some secret method of which they are the sole proprietors. There are nearly one hundred and fifty of these institute frauds in the United States cheating the people out of millions of dollars annually. In the third class of "cures" are placed a number of home-made remedies which through either ignorance or superstition have been advanced as treatments for tuberculosis. Some of these are onions, lemons, rattlesnake poison, coal dust, lime dust, pig's blood, dog oil, milk "strippings," and even alcohol; but these will not cure consumption. The association says: "No drug, gas, or other material has yet been discovered which when eaten, inhaled, or injected into the body will kill the germs of tuberculosis. Fresh air, which contains more oxygen than any substance known, will destroy the germs of tuberculosis if it is breathed continually for a long enough period; and if rest and wholesome food are employed at the same time to build up the body." We gladly pass this information on. We hope that our readers will take note of it. The Wretched Conditions in Our Cities.—The tenement-house department in New York have just reported that there are more than one hundred thousand living-rooms in that city absolutely without windows. Besides this there are nearly three hundred thousand living-rooms with inadequate light and air. More than one hundred thousand New Yorkers live in cellars, barred from both sunlight and air. In these quarters, inhabited largely by foreign population, children have a death-rate almost five times that of the city as a whole from preventable diseases. The past year it has been conservatively estimated that there have been twenty-seven thousand deaths from scarlet fever, cerebrospinal meningitis, measles, whooping-cough, intestinal diseases, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases, which might have been prevented if proper conditions had been observed. And yet New York is supposed to be one of the most highly civilized cities in the world. But the whole city plan is unnatural. The old saying is forever true, "God made the country and man made the town," and he made the town in order that more money might be made from his fellow creatures. The sad fact is that thousands upon thousands will flock into the unbearable living places in the large cities when the country just a little way out will furnish them with pure air and sunshine. Better a tent or a shack out in the open, away from the cities, than living in many of the city flats even. William A. McKeever, professor of philosophy in the State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kan., is issuing a series of helpful bulletins. No. 1 is "The Cigaret Smoking Boy;" No. 2, "Teaching the Boy to Save;" No. 3, "Training the Girl to Help in the House;" No. 4, "Assisting the Boy in the Choice of a Vocation." No. 5 is "A Better Crop of Boys and Girls." A portion of this was given in a public address, and there has been such a demand for it that it has been issued as Bulletin No. 5. The first four have had a large circulation. The price of the bulletin is not given, but information concerning it can be obtained by addressing Prof. Wm. A. McKeever, State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kan. In the last bulletin Professor McKeever demands that there should be courses in home training, in matrimony, and legal enactments demanding examinations of those who would enter matrimony. One may not agree with all that he says, but he certainly has given some splendid food for thought. We have received a little pamphlet written by an earnest Christian minister entitled "My Lodge Experience; The Secret Order and Why I Left It." By George O. States. Published by the Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tenn. The price of it is 15 cents. It is especially addressed to ministers and members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and yet the author believes that these principles would be helpful to every sincere Christian. He takes up the lodge question in the light of Christianity. The pamphlet is certainly worth reading. The Oxford University Press will issue a commemoration edition of the King James version of the Bible in May, 1911, in honor of the first printing of this version 300 years ago. English and American scholars are working to correct obsolete words.