News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 30, 1914

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The wedding of Miss Eleanor Randolph Wilson, youngest daughter of the President, and Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo, will take place at the White House in Washington, D. C., May 7.

— Labor troubles are assuming critical proportions in St. Petersburg, Russia. More than 600,000 men are out of work. By order of the government, the principal factories of the city have shut down and declared a lockout.

— A new island, about 100 feet high and five miles in circumference, was born in the Bonin group during the recent activity of the Fuji volcanic system. The Bonin group lies off the Japan coast due south of Yokohama.

— The national Senate has passed the House bill directing the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Secretary of the Treasury to promulgate regulations for keeping in sanitary condition all interstate passenger cars. Surgeons of the Public Health Service are authorized to enter cars at any time to enforce the regulations.

— Two hundred graves of Chinese in the cemetery near Cynwyd, Cook Co., Ill., were decorated recently with roast pig, chicken, rice, and wine, in accordance with the ancient Chinese rite for the dead. Incense was burned at the head of each grave, while at the foot prayers, written on small paper squares, were consumed in bonfires.

— Between January 1 and April 1 thirty-eight aviators in all parts of the world lost their lives. The United States, with five killed, stands fourth on the list, which France heads, with ten dead. Germany lost eight in the same period, Great Britain seven, Turkey three, and Chile, Spain, Argentina, Switzerland, and Italy one each.

— By a majority of eighty, an amendment for the rejection of the Home Rule Bill was defeated in the House of Commons on April 6, and without division the bill was given for the third time its second reading in the House. An interval of some weeks will now elapse for the suggestion stage, but the bill will reach the Lords early in May, and probably will be on the statute book by June.

— The Department of Commerce made a statement recently that notwithstanding the ravages of civil war which has been raging in Mexico more or less for the last five years, the foreign trade of that republic in 1913 amounted to $248,000,000. Of this amount $150,000,000 represented exports and $98,000,000 imports. The United States took seventy-seven per cent of the exports, and supplied fifty per cent of the imports. Greatly increased exports of crude mineral oil, somewhat increased exports of cattle and coffee, and diminished exports of rubber and metallic minerals from Mexico during the last year are conspicuous features of the report.

— Queen Eleanore of Bulgaria, who some time ago declared her intention of visiting the United States, has decided to leave the Bulgarian capital in the latter part of May. Queen Eleanore will be the first reigning queen to visit the United States. She intends to make a study of the institutions and of the people of America, in which she has always been greatly interested.

— Plans for a defense conference of Great Britain and her dominions are rapidly assuming form, and will be complete when the consent of Canada is gained. Australia and New Zealand have already announced their desire for such a conference, and since the problem of the Pacific will be the chief topic considered by the meeting, it is believed that Canada will join the other dominions.

— The annual report of the Children's Bureau at Washington, a branch of the Department of Labor, makes the startling statement that 300,000 infants under a year old died in the United States during the year 1913. To say the least, the thought is pathetic and tragical. This frightful waste of child life is due, Miss Julia Lathrop, the clerk of the bureau, declares, "solely to individual and civic neglect."

— Tuberculosis has a little more than doubled in France since 1887, due largely to intemperance, according to Henry Schmidt, who is one of the leading figures of the temperance movement in that country. Infant mortality in Normandy, where women drink excessively, is just double what it is in the temperate department of Gers, where the people are sober. Infantile mortality is at the highest in those districts where absinthe drinking is prevalent.

— Thirty-three United States senators are to be elected this year by direct vote of the people in the first general test of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution. Primary elections and conventions for the nomination of various candidates already have been held in some States, and will continue throughout the country for several months preliminary to the general elections next fall. Terms of thirty-one present members of the Senate expire March 3 next, and in addition successors must be chosen to the late Senator Johnston of Alabama and the late Senator Bacon of Georgia.

— The liquor interests were dealt a staggering blow in Illinois on Tuesday, April 7. Nearly 1,000 saloons were put out of business, and some sixteen counties were added to the dry list. A majority of the counties of Illinois are now antisaloon territory. The dries did not lose a single place that was in dry territory before the election, but the liquor interests lost about sixteen counties and nearly 1,000 saloons. The activity of the women in this contest was very manifest, and the ballots of the women undoubtedly caused the defeat of the wets in many places. The next move of the antisaloon forces will be on Chicago. A large, carefully selected delegated meeting has been called.

Plans are being formulated for a year of educational work to prepare for the election contest in April, 1915.

— Communication was held recently between the wireless station at Nauen, Germany, and one at Windhoek, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, the messages passed being clear and distinct. The distance between the two points is approximately 6,000 miles.

— To what extent legislation in behalf of children is needed is revealed by the most recent census report, which brings out the fact that nearly 2,000,000 children between the ages of ten and sixteen are at work in the United States. And these figures do not take into account those who are under ten years of age and who are employed in canneries, harmful agricultural pursuits under padroner supervision, factories, mines, street trades, and other places.

— The "Carnegie," the nonmagnetic vessel that completed last autumn a four-year tour of the earth in the interests of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, will sail in June for the coast of Norway, and will spend the summer on the North Atlantic Ocean. In 1915 the vessel will go south, sail through the Panama Canal, and conduct a magnetic exploration of the Southern Pacific Ocean, concerning which, from a magnetic standpoint, little is known.

— Dowager Empress Haruko of Japan, widow of the late Emperor Mutsuhito, died on April 9. She was born May 28, 1850, and was the daughter of a nobleman. In 1869 she married the late emperor and was declared empress. Haruko by the side of her husband passed through the troubled period of the transformation of Japan at the beginning of Mutsuhito's reign. She saw the opening of the country to foreign commerce, its departure from Old World customs and its adoption of Western civilization.

— Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, who succeeded Miss Frances Willard in 1898 as head of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, died at Portland, Maine, April 6, 1914. She was born at Dover, Maine, March 1, 1844, and was a teacher before her marriage to Michael Stevens, who survives her. Forty years ago she assisted in organizing the Maine Woman's Christian Temperance Union, later becoming its president. She became vice president of the national organization in 1894, and she was vice president at large of the world's organization, presiding at the session in Brooklyn last year.

— The money spent by the United States on its post office includes, as its largest item, the railroad transportation of mail, $47,393,206.30. Compensation to assistant postmasters and post-office clerks totaled $45,785,826.34. Rural delivery costs a little more than $45,000,000; city delivery, something more than $36,000,000; compensation to postmasters, $29,000,000; railway mail clerks, $23,000,000; star routes, $7,000,000; and so on down through a long list of expenditures that include everything from $200,000 worth of wrapping twine and $283,000 worth of mail bags. The manufacture of postage stamps costs $687,000, and the manufacture of postal cards costs $272,000. Special delivery service costs $1,675,000. Mail transportation in Alaska is listed as a separate item, at $231,000.

— George Westinghouse, engineer and inventor of the air brake that "has saved more lives than Napoleon lost in all his battles," died of heart disease at his home in New York City on March 12. He was born in the village of Central Bridge, near Schenectady, N. Y., on October 6, 1846.

— The minister of marine announced in the chamber of deputies March 19 that the Greek naval program provided for three dreadnought battleships, one of which is now under construction, three armored cruisers, and a number of lighter craft. He declared that Greece is prepared at all costs to maintain the supremacy of the sea won in the recent Balkan war.

— What will probably be the government's largest and most elaborate individual exhibit at the Panama Exposition at San Francisco in 1915 is a model of the Panama Canal more than 500 feet long. From this model, it is said, the visitor will be able to get a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the canal and of its workings than by actual visit to the canal itself. The canal commission will be allowed $60,000 of the $500,000 federal appropriation for the fair.

— The total number of banks in the new regional reserve system, the total capital and surplus of these banks, and the number of banks in each district, are shown in the following table:—

CITIES	NO. BANKS & TRUST COS.	CAPITAL & SURPLUS
Boston	446	$ 165,529,010
New York	479	344,793,437
Philadelphia	801	216,550,213
Cleveland	726	193,697,258
Richmond	484	109,054,683
Atlanta	382	78,379,663
Chicago	999	219,198,760
St. Louis	445	103,655,397
Minneapolis	687	78,381,081
Kansas City	838	93,248,612
Dallas	732	93,901,523
San Francisco	529	135,258,732
Totals	7,548	$ 1,831,648,369

— Queen Ena of Spain is the best-dressed royal lady of Europe, according to a Belgian journal which has made careful inquiries as to the amount spent annually by the various queens on their toilets. As a result of the investigation it was declared today that she buys all her gowns in Paris and pays to the great firms of the Rue de la Paix annually an average of $40,000. The German empress, who patronizes only Berlin dressmakers, spends nearly $20,000 yearly for her clothes. An equal amount is spent by the czarina, who in private life dresses very simply, but goes in for expensive robes for state and festival occasions. The same sum represents the cost of Madame Poincaré's wardrobe. Queen Helena of Italy spends about $16,000 a year, while the dress budget of Queen Elizabeth of Belgium does not exceed $10,000. Queen Wilhelmina of Holland dresses still more modestly, and spends only about $3,500 a year. Queen Mary of England holds the economy record. All her dresses, with the exception of those for state occasions, are made at home under her own supervision and with her cooperation. The newspaper confesses its inability even to guess at the amount she spends.

— Discovery of a specific serum for the treatment of lobar pneumonia was announced recently by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In a statement sent to physicians the institute announces that it is prepared to treat patients suffering from the disease in acute form. Results of experiments indicate the efficiency of the discovery in lowering the mortality from this malady.