The United States Navy in 1909.
By Editor
THE navy of the United States now stands, by common consent, second only to that of Great Britain, altho its reconstruction was begun but fifteen years ago. This result has been attained by vigorous action and large outlay, especially during the last ten years. For the financial year 1899-1900 the total naval expenditure of the United States was rather less than ten million sterling [$50,000,000], and the vote for new construction and armaments was a little more than two million [$10,000,000]; while the additions to the fleet made during that year consisted entirely of torpedo craft, of which the aggregate tonnage was only eighteen hundred tons. For the current financial year the total vote for the navy closely approaches twenty-six million [$130,000,000], and the vote for new construction and armaments is about £7,800,000 [$39,000,000]. The total expenditure on new ships and armaments in the ten years has been nearly sixty-three million sterling [$315,000,000]. During 1905-'06 the expenditure on these items approached £11,400,000 [$57,000,000], an amount which has only been exceeded by Great Britain during the same period in the two years 1904-'06.—London Spectator. The High School and College.
In reply to a question of the Yale University News whether a college education is a valuable preparation for railroading, E. H. Harriman, the great railway magnate, declares that a college education will be a great help if the man has kept the foundations of high-school learning firmly fixed. If he has neglected his handwriting, and forgotten his arithmetic in higher mathematics, nothing could be worse for him. He cites a simple statement which a high-school boy will draw with perfect accuracy and clearness, while a young college graduate will draw it in such a way that it is a puzzling scrawl. And the New York World declares that in many other occupations, excepting the learned professions, what Mr. Harriman says is the cold truth. The boy who begins young gets the better start. The college man must go faster to overtake him, and then cites different persons among the great railway magnates and financial men; some of whom started poor and very young, and others had university educations, and yet there is but little difference between them. Very, very much depends upon the man. The Worcester (Mass.) “Telegram” states that a silk dyer of Patterson, N. J., claims that he has discovered or perfected a chemical for the purifying of city sewage, so that the very worst specimens of sewage can be taken, and in a short time made absolutely pure. It precipitates all the solids in the sewage and leaves a perfectly pure water at the top. And this gentleman is willing to undertake the purifying of the sewage of the city of Worcester entirely free, simply for the solids which come from the purification which he will sell as fertilizers. It can be done, he tells us, for a very little cost, and that the water from the sewage will be as absolutely pure as any drinking water in the country. If this report is true, it will certainly be a marvelous discovery. Fires.—The Woman's National Daily tells us that the production of gold in the entire world, something like $400,000,000 per year, would not repay us for our losses by fire and the incidental expenses accompanying them in the same period of time. The value of all the coal mines in this country in a year's time would just cover the cost of our fires. The value of all our lumber production is only a trifle more. Fire is one of our greatest luxuries. In 1907, there were no great conflagrations. It was what might be termed a normal year; but the buildings actually destroyed, and property contained in them that year amounted to the value of $215,000,000. Open Polar Sea.—There are those who feel that explorer Amundsen has demonstrated the open polar sea at the north. Barrels were set adrift at Cape Bathurst in Alaska and one of these has been found on the northwest coast of Norway, and another in the Arctic Sea. These were positively identified. Casket number 6 drifted from a post northwest of Point Barrow, Alaska, where it was placed in 1899, over a 2,500-mile course to the most northern point in Iceland. They feel, too, that it proves the existence of what scientists have contended for, of a great drift current across the northern extremity of the earth. Captain Roald Amundsen will probably start an expedition for the North Pole across the same route next year. The so-called Christ-like Club, started in Cleveland, is growing. Its aim is to live as Jesus would, for a certain definite time. It was started by a law student; and it will probably spread from city to city. Nothing would we say under any circumstances which would lessen any true desires for righteousness, and yet a movement to be solid, stable, and growingly secure must be built on more than mere human effort or pledge to do. It takes deeper root in sincere repentance of sin; a recognition of what sin is, and of what Christ must be to the sinner. The Christ-death can only come from the Christ-life. One of the stock arguments for a Sunday law is: We ought to have it in California because other states have it,—an argument, it seems to us, that rational thinking people should never put forth for one moment. That would justify the worst legislation that was ever effected, and the cruelest laws that were ever placed upon statute-books. Legislation and law-making never ought to be a matter of fashion, but a matter of right, of justice, of equity. In Benton, Ill., January 10, 25 miners were killed by an explosion shortly after midnight in the mine of the Ziegler Coal Company, at Ziegler. Of 26 who were entombed, but one escaped. Seismological.—January 23, the seismographs of the continent of Europe and England recorded a very severe earthquake about eight o'clock in the morning. The intensity was said to be nearly as great as that recorded last month at the time of the Messina disaster. The disturbance is placed somewhere in the Caspian region in Asiatic Russia. At four o'clock the same morning seismographs in Vienna and Pola registered very strong earthquake shocks. At 3:55 a violent earthquake was registered at Potsdam; the instrument broke under the oscillations. Other seismographs registered the same earthquake. The same was noted in Washington, but no news of the local occurrence of the great quake has yet come to hand. It may have occurred in an uninhabited region of mountain or sea. The next day several other shocks were recorded at St. Petersburg and other places in Russia. It is thought that the great quake occurred somewhere in the wilds of Turkestan.—Reports from the Island of Luzon in the Philippines are to the effect that a volcano has broken out there and torrents of lava spout from the crater. The inhabitants fled to the hills. Sufficient lava flowed from the volcano to pour down the mountainsides and run over cultivated lands, wiping out bridges and roads. It is said that the twenty-two people who were not long ago burned to death in a railroad wreck in Colorado would have been saved if the block signal system, the interlocking signals and derailing switches, had been a feature of the railway. There is a strong plea being made, shown in the multiplied articles upon the question, that public sentiment and legislation should force the adoption of the block system and other needed reforms in all railway operations. It certainly would make much safer the running of trains. In the block system no two trains are supposed to occupy the same block, or extent of road, at the same time, the train upon that block for the time signaling automatically all other trains that could come in collision with it. If a certain minimum distance were always preserved between trains, the interest of the public would be greatly served. As Professor Gerrish points out in the Scientific American, a train arriving at an opposing block signal ought to be required to stay there until the block is cleared, even if a few minutes are lost in consequence. The saving in time should be effected by keeping the track clear, and not by disregarding danger signals. One of the characteristics of proposed legislation in the state governments, especially manifest this year, is the vast number of so-called reform bills. One writer expresses it regarding the California Legislature, that “the old guard or the machine men are feeling it greatly. Men who have held control of certain rings and cliques for years in the past are losing their power.” All this would be good if the reformed forces really stood for the right kind of legislative reform. One of the great dangers is that they are trying to legislate not simply for men, but for God, and not simply for right civil laws, but for morality and religion. This is manifest in the constant plea for Sunday laws, or laws of the same significant character. After its disuse for two years, in which the very world itself had hoped that it was forever abolished, France has again resumed the use of the guillotine for the execution of capital crimes. The news of the beheading of four victims at Bethune, January 11, tells us that the whole day preceding the awful scene was a revolting one of merriment and drinking. The mob cheered and cheered as the heads rolled into the basket. A new Lincoln commemorative two-cent postage-stamp has been issued by the United States, and was placed on sale February 12. Its design is to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Its color is red. The dates of Lincoln's birth and of his hundredth anniversary are printed on the stamp.