At a mass-meeting in Elgin, Illinois, attended by 1000 persons, Rev. Milton B. Williams, a prominent reform worker, said: "Before I came to this meeting I was called up on the telephone by an Elgin business man who has important connections with financiers of the first magnitude. He was unable to come here, but he asked me to make a statement for him. He said he knew for a fact that the enormous sum of $625,000 had been spent at a recent session of Congress to secure the acquittal of Senator Lorimer, and that this money had been put up by the Standard Oil Company and other big financial interests. Of this money, it was asserted, a prominent senator got $100,000."
The Chinese Anti-Opium Society says in their Atlas News Sheet: "We want to tell England that if we are free to prohibit opium, our national resources will develop quickly, so that England will get advantage from other forms of trade, and therefore there is no necessity to require compensation from us now. If England can generously give up the opium trade as a source of revenue, our country will be filled with thankfulness and sympathy towards yours." England ought to do all her part to put an end to the traffic forever.
Miss Ella Masterson of White Bear, Minnesota, who has fasted thirty-six days for a general nervous breakdown, says: "After the fourth day I had no desire for food, altho I sat at the table with the family and saw them eating. I lost thirty pounds, but did not become especially weak, and my mind was unusually clear, and in better working condition than before the fast began. I do not say that the fast absolutely restored me to vigorous health; but that I received great benefit from it, there is not the slightest doubt."
Protest has been made to President Taft by three large Jewish organizations of the United States against Russia's treatment of Jews who, as American citizens, have returned to Russia on business or to visit relatives. The President has assured the delegation who presented the protest that their complaint would be taken up with the Russian government, and that demand would be made that American Jews when in Russia be accorded the same treatment shown other citizens of the United States.
According to the "Universalist Leader," a prominent organ of that denomination, the Universalist ministry is facing a crisis. During the year 1909 there were only eight ordinations, and it now says that "there are not more than thirty students in the three theological schools of the denomination." As to the outlook, the article says, "They represent a condition which means that unless the ministry can be heavily recruited within the next few years the denomination is doomed."
The Roosevelt dam and power plant of the Salt River Valley Irrigation Project in Arizona, was dedicated March 18, 1911, by former President Theodore Roosevelt. The dam is of the Rubble masonry arch gravity type, has a maximum height of 280 feet, and develops 7,500 horse-power, which is transmitted to Phœnix, 75 miles distant. The reservoir insures ample supply for irrigating 240,000 acres of land in Salt River Valley.
A Minnesota inventor has devised a cash register that announces the amount of sale in human voice, as well as registering the figures. When the keys are touched for, say, a sale of $1.65, certain phonographic reproducers are released, and the machine sings out, "One-sixty-five." Added to the announcement of the sale may be such expressions as, "Thank you," or "I think you will find these goods satisfactory."
The increasing size and draft of modern battle-ships and other large cruisers is necessitating the revision of ocean charts. The need has been emphasized by vessels recently running on rocks that have not been designated on existing charts. An international conference may convene for the purpose of organizing an international service of maritime charts.
Several women officers are on the police force in Kansas City. Occasionally they make an arrest, but their work usually is of a more modest character. Their effort is mostly to protect women and children. They attend public places of amusement to prevent improper conduct, assist girls to find work, and perform humanitarian work in general.
How the Chinese have their cues combed every morning. Their combs and razors are very crude, but they seem to do the work.
The Michelin Grand Prize of $20,000, the largest to be captured by aviators in France, was won by Eugene Renaux. In a Farman biplane and carrying a passenger, he flew from Paris 240 miles south, and landed on top of Puy-de-Dôme, a mountain 4,805 feet high. He was in actual flight five hours, so his average speed was 48 miles an hour.
A recent ordnance invention is the bomb gun. It is constructed to fire a hollow shell loaded with 160 pounds of poisonous chemicals, which when the bomb explodes engender deadly gases that destroy all life within a radius of 500 yards. When the experiment was tried on animals the fumes killed them and colored them green.
Hudson Maxim, who predicts that warfare of the future will be expensive, declares that enough aeroplanes could be built in a few months to transport 100,000 men into the enemy's territory. "We could land a formidable army of raiders on an enemy from the very skies, and quickly accomplish irreparable destruction."
The first Universal Races' Congress will be held in the University of London, July 26-29. Representatives of all the races in the world will meet as equals and in council to discuss how prejudices may be removed and friendlier relations established between the Western nations and other peoples of earth.
The attention of American scientists visiting in India was attracted to bugs which preyed on ordinary garden insects, resulting in a cargo's being shipped to this country, part of which will be sent to Florida, where it is thought the insects will make short work of the orange lice that have been devastating the groves in the South.
It is said a plan is under way to overturn the republic of Portugal and restore the throne to King Manuel. Several meetings have been held in Paris and London by adherents to the deposed King, and at two of the meetings, those present pledged themselves to support an attempt to restore the monarchy.
Surveys are being made at Esquimalt, British Columbia, to build one of the largest dry docks in the world and the largest on the Pacific Coast. The dock will be constructed of steel and reinforced concrete, and will be built with the aid of the dominion government at an estimated cost of $3,000,000.
An invention held by this Government is a new explosive which Mr. Maxim says "will prove a revelation in warfare. The value of the explosive lies in the fact that it will send a projectile through any armor, and the explosion will not take place until after this projectile has passed through the armor."
Paul C. Wentz, an engraver and jeweler of Sharon, Pennsylvania, has engraved the Lord's Prayer and his own name, a total of 336 characters, on the head of an ordinary pin. The prayer can easily be read with a magnifying glass. After all it is better to have it engraved on the heart.
The Washington State Board of Health is stirred by the presence of the bubonic plague in Spokane, where three deaths are attributed to it, and there are said to be sixteen cases. Houses in which deaths occurred have been burned, and extreme measures adopted to prevent its spread.
Governor Charles S. Osborn of Michigan made the statement, endorsed by nearly 1,000 men, that Wm. J. Bryan is greater to-day as a preacher than he ever was as a politician. He says, "If Mr. Bryan followed false gods in politics, he is to-day following after the true God in religion."
And now Higher Criticism has touched the Mormon camp. At least there are charges against an instructor in the Mormon university at Provo for "unorthodox teaching." According to the professor's explanation he is a moderate Higher Critic, believing in creation by evolution.
While others fled, twenty Mexican rebels in Chihuahua were killed by rapid-fire guns pointed from an armored railroad car which had been converted into a portable fort by the government. These cars are coupled in mixed freight-trains to conceal their identity.
Over 500 students in Chinese Christian colleges have pledged their lives to the ministry during the past two years, signing a declaration card with the watchword, "The Evangelization of Our Mother Country and of the World in This Generation."
Living expenses in Italy are advancing. House rents and price of food are said to have doubled in ten years. A German tourist in this country says that in Europe Americans are held accountable for the increased cost of living.
A Catholic newspaper, "Unione," of Milan, has published what is said to be a revelation of a plot organized by an international group of Freemasons in Paris to deprive the Vatican of diplomatic representatives accredited to the pope.
One thousand cases of typhoid fever have been reported in Erie, Pennsylvania, and surrounding region. Altho the source of infection has not been determined, it is suspected that the lake water has been contaminated with sewage.
The rebels in Peru recently held up a train and robbed it of $5,000,000.
