News and Miscellany by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Jul 24, 1913

News and Miscellany

By Editor

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

—On July 14 a severe storm swept over Ohio. Railroad traffic was suspended for more than twelve hours. Near Zanesville, twenty bridges were washed away, and crops ruined throughout the section. The damages are estimated near $500,000.

—Now that the opium traffic is rooted out in the interior, China is turning her attention to the port cities, where there is an enormous quantity of the drug valued at many thousands of dollars. In Tientsin recently a great burning took place, at which about $30,000 worth of opium was destroyed.

—What is said to be the oldest ship in the world was recently broken up at Teneriffe, Canary Islands. It was the "Anita," an Italian ship built in Genoa in 1548, and it is claimed was almost an exact duplicate of the "Santa Maria," the galleon in which Christopher Columbus made his great voyage of discovery.

—The United States Department of Agriculture has promulgated a notice of a quarantine that affects the six New England States because of the infection of trees with the gypsy-moth and the brown-tail moth. Coniferous trees, including Christmas trees, decorative trees, and forest plant products are not to be moved from any of these States into others outside the quarantine districts. The order goes into effect the first of August.

—Last week Dr. Robert Bridges was appointed poet laureate of England, succeeding the late Alfred Austin. Dr. Bridges, who was for a number of years a medical practitioner, retired to private life, issuing poetic productions every now and then. He ranks among the minor poets, but is also known for the grace and charm of his poetry. Those familiar with his work say that "he is a scholarly writer, and has devoted much critical study to the works of great masters of English and classic verse."

—River Forest, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, has engaged a business manager who will have the entire charge of all the affairs of the community. He will command the police force, handle the street work, and direct the schools; in fact, he will control the entire village administration. He will be directly responsible to a village board, but is not to be under the orders of this organization. River Forest is the third municipality in the United States to put the affairs of the community into the hands of a business manager.

—Vehicles killed 410 persons in the streets of London last year, 107 more than the previous year; and 15,154 persons were injured in street accidents.

—The Red Cross stamp, or seal, that has been on sale at the holiday season during the past four years for the benefit of the antituberculosis campaign, has netted nearly $1,000,000.

—The Italian ministry of agriculture, industry, and commerce will expend $7,585 in premiums by way of encouraging the construction of modern, improved farmhouses and other farm-buildings in certain provinces in Italy.

—A railroad strike involving 80,000 conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads has been averted, at least for the present, by the passage by Congress of the Newlands-Clayton Bill. This law creates a board of mediation and conciliation, headed by a commissioner, to which the Eastern railways and employees' brotherhoods have declared their willingness to submit their wage dispute for arbitration.

—Anarchy has been prevailing in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a result of a general strike among miners. Troops were called out, and were ordered to fire upon the rioters, resulting in several deaths and many wounded. Property was destroyed by strikers and the red flag hoisted. At last reports, the government was trying to bring about a peaceful solution of the question at issue, but with little success.

—Port Antonio, a little city on the northeastern shore of Jamaica, is the greatest banana port in the world. In 1911 it shipped more than 9,000,000 bunches of bananas, nearly all of which came to the United States. Jamaica leads all other countries in the world in the production of bananas; and Port Antonio has the lead over all other towns in Jamaica, because the heavy rainfall in its neighborhood is favorable to the production of this fruit.

—Switzerland has recently enacted an important law, which affects its women. Until the end of 1911, a Swiss woman, no matter what age she may have been, was considered a minor. Since March this year she is a major by law. She can now vote for municipal and parliamentary bodies. She has a right to dispose of her earnings. A Swiss widow becomes legal guardian of her children, and can make her will. The marriageable age for women has been raised from sixteen to eighteen years, and for men from eighteen to twenty years.

—Mississippi's prison farms have not only proved the most humane and beneficial way of handling prisoners, but they have proved most profitable. Every year from 4,000 to 5,000 bales of cotton, more corn than enough to supply the demand of the farm, bushels upon bushels of sweet potatoes, molasses as good as can be found anywhere on earth, peas, vegetables of all varieties, fruits, melons, in fact everything good to eat, are raised on the State farm, and after paying a profit into the State treasury of from one fourth to one half of a million dollars, the tables of the convicts are provided with a better fare than many of the free citizens of the State can boast.

—First estimates of the year's rice crop in Japan are most encouraging, exceeding 55,000,000 koku (about 275,000,000 bushels), which is the record amount in the last ten years.

—It is estimated that America produces 32 per cent of the world's food supply, although it has only 5 per cent of the world's population. Russia supplies nearly 14 per cent of the food supply, while she has about 8 per cent of the world's population.

—The world's total population is estimated at 1,700,000,000, out of which the proportion of the sexes is known for 1,038,000,000, the ratio being 1,000 males to 990 females. The ratio varies considerably in different places. There were for every 1,000 men in Europe, 1,027 women; Africa, 1,045; America, 964; Asia, 961; Australia, 937. The maximum proportion of women is found in Uganda, 1,467; the minimum in the Alaska gold-fields and the Malay states, with 391 and 389, respectively.

—Dr. F. F. Friedmann's much-heralded tuberculosis serum was declared by the Public Health Service of the government "not to justify that confidence in the remedy which has been inspired by wide-spread publicity." The report was presented recently at a meeting of the national tuberculosis organization in Washington, and the association immediately adopted resolutions to the effect that no specific cure for the white plague has yet been discovered, and urging the public to continue "present well-tried agencies."

—Results of investigation here and in Europe into the number and causes of typhoid cases show a startling condition in this country as compared with the conditions in Europe. The excessively high rate of typhoid fever cases in the United States is characterized as "our national disgrace" by sanitariums and public health experts who have made the study, and the comparisons just concluded seem to justify this characterization. Despite the advanced methods of living in the United States the statistics show that the rate of typhoid cases in this country per 100,000 population is 18.5 in excess of the rate in European cities taken as a basis of comparison.

—A German cabinet-maker has constructed a pair of water shoes, with the help of which he walks upon the water. He crossed Lake Ammer, in Bavaria, 12,000 feet wide, in two hours. These water shoes are really two long, narrow boxes of pine wood, squared off at the rear end, and shaped like the bow of a boat in front. To preserve his balance the traveler grasps two upright posts. At the outer edge of each boat, or shoe, three small paddles, shaped like rudders, are fastened. These move on hinges and are worked by a sliding mechanism that is operated by the traveler pushing his feet forward alternately, somewhat like a boy learning to skate. He can travel rapidly and with safety on smooth water, although the apparatus is probably not fit for use in stormy weather. Those who have tested it assert that it does not tax the strength as much as rowing a moderately sized boat. The inventor uses his water shoes almost every day for crossing the lake and transporting his tools and a moderate amount of baggage.