p. 21 | News and Miscellany by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Sep 26, 1912

News and Miscellany

By Editor

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— There were twenty-eight persons injured, many seriously, when east-bound train No. 6 of the Nickel Plate road was derailed on the afternoon of September 10, near Erie, Pa.

— Three persons were killed and fifty injured by a tornado which worked a ten-mile trail of destruction across the northern part of Onondaga County, New York, on September 15.

— New York City has twenty-one industries in each of which the annual product is valued at more than $20,000,000. The largest of these industries is the manufacture of clothing, and next comes the printing and publishing business.

— Aviator Paul Peck, of Washington, D. C., holder of the American duration flight record, was fatally injured at Chicago, Ill., on September 12, when the biplane in which he was flying suddenly crashed to the ground. He died several hours later.

— The great forest fires, which unfortunately occur almost every autumn, leave vast quantities of "fire-killed timber." This is now being used extensively for many purposes, being preferred in some cases to green timber. Fruit-growers, for instance, are said to prefer it for packing-boxes because it is almost odorless, and does not impart an unnatural flavor to the fruit. Telephone-poles and railway ties are also made to advantage from fire-killed timber.

— Forty-six war-vessels, quite a respectable little navy in themselves, are just now in the builders' hands in various stages of completion, intended for Uncle Sam's navy, according to a report issued by the Naval Construction Bureau. The list includes six battle-ships (all dreadnaughts), eleven torpedo-boat destroyers, seventeen submarines, one submarine tender, two seagoing naval tugs, four naval colliers, and one gun-boat.

— Gen. Count Maresuke Nogi, hero of the Russo-Japanese war and supreme military councilor of the Japanese empire, and his wife, the Countess Nogi, committed suicide on the night of September 13, in accordance with the ancient Japanese custom, as a final tribute to their departed emperor and friend, Mutsuhito. The general cut his throat with a short sword, and the countess committed hara-kiri. Following the Samurai custom, the couple had carefully prepared their plans for killing themselves, and timed them so that they would be coincident with the departure forever from Tokio of the dead emperor.

— The Twenty-third International Eucharistic Conference, which convened in Vienna, Austria, September 12, is likely to establish a record as to the number of strangers in attendance, 80,000 tickets having been sold to foreigners as compared with 13,000 at the Montreal congress two years ago. It is estimated that not less than 120,000 visitors are in attendance, and the hotels are so crowded that titled visitors are glad to obtain sleeping quarters in the hotel bathrooms. Many thousands of pilgrims have found shelter in 400 schoolhouses.

— War to the death has been declared against typhoid fever by the government's health experts. Realizing that typhoid each year causes more deaths and greater economic loss in the United States than does cholera in Russia, or bubonic plague in other nations, the Public Health Service, armed with increased powers granted by Congress at the recent session, is going to make this campaign against disease its greatest. Simultaneously, the State Department at Washington and the Canadian officials at Ottawa have referred this question to the international joint commission, which has charge of questions regarding the pollution of boundary waters between the United States and Canada.

— In a wide-spread, popular, but unarmed form, the revolution which for the last seven months has spread throughout Mexico, reached the capital city on the night of September 14, when mobs of thousands, crying, "Long live Porfirio Diaz," "Death to Madero," paraded the streets, halting finally in front of the Chamber of Deputies and demanding that President Madero be driven from the chair, and the aged ex-ruler recalled from Europe to take his place. The congress is in session, considering the government's petition for a $50,000,000 bond issue, the proceeds to be used in putting down the revolution. The mass of the people are opposed to this loan, as the public debt of the republic has increased nearly twenty-five per cent since the Madero government came in, Nov. 6, 1911. On September 15, 500 Mexican rebels attacked fifty Americans at El Tigre, a gold-mining camp.

— During a football game in Belfast, Ireland, September 14, a fight took place in which sixty persons were injured, two seriously.

— An aviation club in Paris, France, is raising a fund for the erection of a monument to commemorate the aerial achievements of Wilbur Wright in France in 1908.

— Reports of new outbreaks of cholera in Syria and Sardinia, whence come many immigrants to the United States, have set into motion once more the intricate machinery with which the United States public health service protects the nation against the ravages of the Asiatic scourge.

— Old Pop, a magnificent poplar-tree, 110 feet high, and twenty-two feet in diameter at the base, which has stood before the Woodford Mansion in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, for 250 years, has been cut down. This was necessary because the tree has long been a lightning conductor, and a target for bolts from all electric storms.

— The telephone has become so much an essential part of the every-day life of the average American that we take it for granted as occupying an equally prominent place in the life of other peoples, and yet of the 22,000,000,000 conversations officially reported for 1911, 14,500,000,000, or sixty-six per cent of the total, were in the United States.

— The Pan-Hellenic Union of America, with a membership of 4,000 Greeks, has just closed its annual convention, held in Boston, by voting $806,000 for various charitable purposes and works of relief. In addition, it was announced that during the past year the union had expended $27,000 in the relief of unemployed Greeks in the United States.

— The Post-office Department will be ready on January 1, next, to inaugurate the general operation of the parcel-post. The law admits to the mails practically all kinds of merchandise that can be safely transported, including products of the farm and garden as well as factory products, provided such articles do not weigh over eleven pounds, nor exceed seventy-two inches in combined length and girth.

— The State Department has announced that already eighteen nations have accepted the invitations to participate in the Panama-Pacific exposition in San Francisco in 1915. These are Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Great Britain (provisionally), Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Salvador, and Uruguay.

— The number of surviving Union soldiers and sailors of the civil war on the pension rolls at the close of the fiscal year, July 31, was slightly under 500,000. Of the number reported twelve months ago, 529,884, more than 35,000 have since died, and more than 2,000 new pensioners have been added to the rolls. It is rather remarkable that almost fifty years after the close of the war there are nearly half a million survivors drawing pensions, this number representing almost twenty-five per cent of the total enlistments of the Union army during the four years of the civil war. The death-rate, however, is now about six per cent a year.

— A subway system which will cost $150,000,000 is planned for Chicago.

— A devastating typhoon, accompanied by heavy rains and high tides almost amounting to tidal waves, brought death to between 30,000 and 40,000 Chinese in the province of Chekiang, September 9.

— The last ten minutes of every hour henceforth are to be "silent" minutes for every wireless machine all over the world, in order that distress calls may have a clear field.

— Etna is reported to be in a state of activity once more. A new mouth has opened on its northeast side, which vomits lava in great quantities. Several earthquake shocks have accompanied the eruption.

— The "Gigantic," a new steamer of the White Star line, is to have a double bottom. This will cost $350,000, and will cause a loss of 250,000 feet in space. This, it is claimed, will make such disasters as that of the "Titanic" impossible.

— A most valuable discovery is announced, a water-proof cement which will not crack. Mixing residual petroleum oil with the usual concrete makes it water-proof without in the least impairing its tensile strength. Concrete is being extensively used in building, but its tendency to crack has been a great disadvantage.

— The Illinois Central Railroad will take an active part in the extermination of mosquitoes along its line, especially in the South. For this purpose it will use goldfish, stocking all pools along the line. Ordinarily, minnows will destroy mosquito larvæ as fast as will fish, but they can not live in stagnant water. The railroad company has found a goldfish in Lake Pontchartrain which will live in such pools, and this will be the source of supply.

— In 1884 the discovery of pygmy hippopotamuses in Liberia was announced. If there were any, they were very rare, and they came to be considered mythical. Two years ago Carl Hagenbach, the well-known animal trainer, sent men to Africa for the purpose of finding these animals. The hunt was successful, and a pair has reached New York City. The male is thirty inches high and seventy inches long. The female is only eighteen inches high.

— The Germans are leading the world in methods of helping and caring for the weak or disabled members of society. By common consent, their systems of pensions for old age and for compensation of working men for injuries are the most efficient that have been devised. There has been inaugurated among them banks designed to afford credit to artisans and small business men and to farmers, which are exciting much attention in other countries. Money is loaned at low rates, and without onerous restrictions. The rural banks are known as the Raiffeisea. The other banks are known as Schulze-Delitzsch. About forty per cent of the loans are on current account, and workmen and small tradesmen needing this aid are able to secure it on the guaranty of their fellows in the association. Loans for fixed periods are made on the cooperative pledges or by discounting bills of exchange, and also on mortgages; while a few loans are granted without guaranty of any sort.