The Panama Affair

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 6, 1904

The Panama Affair

The Panama Affair.—Colombia's agent continues in Washington awaiting the reply of the State Department to the brief of Colombia's case presented by him last week. In case the reply is unfavorable (and it is said to be certain that it will be), he will at once take his leave and the Colombian minister at Washington will also depart. The American minister in Colombia is already on his way to this country. Affairs on the isthmus are quiet, and it is reported that Colombia's attitude is less defiant; that she has received no encouragement from any European country, all of whom desire that the United States build the canal. Panama's agent in this country announces that Panama will assume her proportion of the foreign debt of Colombia. Other countries had intimated that they would expect Panama to do this. Elections have been held in Panama, but the results have not yet been made known. Six hundred marines left Philadelphia on December 28 for the isthmus on the cruiser Dixie to re-enforce the marines already there. The cruiser New York left San Francisco on December 27 for Panama, and is to be followed at once by the gunboat Bennington, and several torpedo-boat destroyers. Large quantities of supplies are also being sent to the isthmus for the use of those now there and those being sent there.

The Sea of Azof is said to be rapidly disappearing, leaving wharves and shipping high and dry.

British army authorities report marked deterioration in the physical condition of the men they have been for some time receiving as recruits for the army. The commander of the forces in South Africa states that the majority sent out are physically immature and of a low standard of intelligence. Professor Cask, a leading authority on public health, declares that this is due to juvenile cigarette-smoking. The professor gives the following formidable list of symptoms produced by that baneful habit: chronic hoarseness, lack of appetite, dyspepsia, pallor from impaired blood formation, rapid and intermittent pulse, pain in the region of the heart, difficulty in breathing, and disinclination to partake of healthy, athletic exercise. To these he adds headache, mental weariness, slowness of thought causing muddled ideas, defects of memory, impatience and irritability. He suggests that the government prohibit the smoking of cigarets by persons under sixteen years of age. But with all that is being said against the use of tobacco, more is being used than ever before. With every year the noxious habit is fastening itself more firmly upon the race, which seems to be losing its power to resist the deeper it goes into the indulgence, and children are born with the habit already acquired.

Railroading in the United States is about as dangerous as campaigning with the army in time of war. The last quarterly bulletin of the Interstate Commerce Commission shows that during the year which ended June 30, 1903, 3,554 passengers and employees were killed outright on the railroads of the United States and that 45,977 were injured. There were 735 more killed than in the previous year, and 6,177 more injured—casualties enough for a small-sized war. There have been several frightful railroad accidents in the United States during the past week. Nine persons were killed outright in a train wreck at Godfrey, Kansas, on December 21, and 32 were injured, of whom it is expected that five will die. Sixty-five persons were killed in a terrible wreck which occurred at Laurel Run, Pa., on December 23, and 30 others were injured. A passenger train, the Pittsburg Limited, ran into a pile of lumber which had fallen on the track from a freight train. Twenty-one persons were killed and 38 injured in a railroad wreck near East Paris, Mich., on December 26. Four of the injured died later, and still others are believed to be fatally hurt.

New South Wales reports an abnormal increase in insanity. The proportion of insane to the whole population is now one to every 299 persons. There is said to be urgent need for additions to the existing hospitals and for the erection of new institutions. Lunacy is steadily increasing both in Britain and America, and this is true also of other highly civilized countries. Cancer also is increasing rapidly. The English registrar-general reports that deaths from the disease have increased from 242 males and 519 females a year, per 1,000,000 of population in 1861-70 to 672 males and 977 females at the present time. In other words, the mortality from the disease has more than doubled in a period of a little over thirty years.

A new storage battery has been invented by Thomas Edison, and has successfully passed through tests. Its superiority over other storage batteries lies in the elimination of weight, the new battery weighing only a fraction of what the old-style storage batteries did. A great future is predicted for it in automobile and locomotive propulsion.

The Vatican proposes to make an attempt to shake off civil control in the election of popes hereafter. An article was recently printed in the Vatican organ, which is thought to have been written by the present pope, stating that the changed political conditions render unbearable the veto “which in the past the church prudently tolerated.”

Rev. Shirley W. Baker, one of the most conspicuous figures in the religious history of Tonga, is dead. In 1890 he was deported by the British government, because of strife between church and civil authorities, and was forbidden to return for two years. He returned to, and died in, Tonga.

Turkey has apologized for its treatment of United States consul Davis, at Alexandretta, and has surrendered the naturalized American, who was being held prisoner by the Turkish authorities. It was the imprisonment of this Americanized Armenian that caused the trouble.

The railroads of the United States have added to their mileage of tracks during the past year a total of 5,723 miles of new road, making the total mileage of the railroads of the United States at the present time 209,855 miles.

More than a ton of letters have been received at the New York Post-office during the holidays, addressed to Santa Claus. About half this amount was received at that office last year addressed to the same individual.

Louis Godard, of New York, an aeronaut who has made a balloon of peculiar construction, plans to start for Europe in May of next year, at which time the winds will be most favorable for such an undertaking.

The Dreyfus case will be reopened, and the condemned and exiled captain of the French army will be given a hearing before a civil tribunal.