Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 19, 1902

— The charters of more than 35,000 corporations doing business in Illinois were recently canceled because of failure to comply with the law of 1901.

— A harvester trust, to be known as the International Harvester Company, with an authorized capital of $120,000,000, was incorporated at Trenton, N. J., August 12.

— It is expected that President Roosevelt will convene the Senate in extra session after the November elections, in order to dispose of the Cuban reciprocity treaty before the regular session of Congress.

— There is trouble between Emperor William and his oldest son, the crown prince, it is reported, the latter having fallen in love with an American girl whom he met in England, and declared that he would renounce the throne if necessary to marry her.

— A recent dinner and ovation given by Prussian soldiers to a Prussian lieutenant who had been sentenced to prison for killing a person in a duel, but was pardoned by Emperor William, shows how dueling is glorified in the Prussian army.

— The steamship “Mariposa” arrived recently at San Francisco from Tahiti, having made the trip across the Pacific with oil as fuel, to the use of which her boilers had been adapted. The officers report that the experiment was a complete success in every way.

— Members of the Chicago council special tax committee appeared before the board of review, August 11, and made the statement that eight railroads dodge taxation on real estate in that city worth $50,000,000, by fraudulently listing it as “trackage.”

— A good deal of fighting, in which the insurgents have the advantage, is attending the progress of the revolution in Venezuela. The important town of Barcelona has fallen into their hands, and considerable damage to the United States consulate and other consulates there was done by the revolutionists. The United States has dispatched a gunboat to the scene of the fighting.

— The “Soo” power canal, which has been in process of construction the past four years at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., was opened August 11. It opens into Lake Superior, whose waters it receives at the rate of 30,000 cubic feet per second. It is two and a third miles long, 220 feet broad, and deep enough to float the largest lake steamships. Its current operates turbine wheels of 40,000 horsepower capacity. The cost of construction was $5,000,000.

— A British trade commission has been investigating trade conditions and prospects in South Africa, and in their report say: “Our revelations will come as a surprise to the British public. The situation here is far more serious than any one imagines. There are fine openings in South Africa for energetic and up-to-date manufacturers, but trade is hampered by trusts and combines which threaten to cripple the development of the country.”

— Four murders of more than usual prominence, two being of police officers, are agitating the police department of Chicago.

— The Treasury Department at Washington is confronted with the problem of finding currency to move 3,000,000,000 bushels of corn and wheat this fall.

— The profits of the northwestern railway combine, of which J. J. Hill is president, will, the latter says, be $150,000,000 for the year beginning July 1.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, son of the poet, has been appointed by President Roosevelt to the United States Supreme Court, taking the place of Justice Gray, who retires on account of ill health.

— At a final session of the British Colonial Conference in London, August 11, a resolution was passed for adopting the metric system of weights and measures throughout the empire.

— The estimated wheat crop of the year in the United States is 633,000,000 bushels. The yield of corn is estimated at 2,500,000,000 bushels. Oats, barley, rye, and potatoes also promise large crops.

— In Brittany, the most Catholic section of France, the government agents have experienced much difficulty in closing the religious schools, the priests openly inciting their followers to armed resistance.

— Cholera is reported to be raging at Kharbin, Manchuria, the average daily mortality being about 150. Many of the Chinese drop down dead in the streets and other public places. All who are able to flee are leaving the town.

— There is much distress among the families of the striking miners at Shenandoah, Pa. The funds contributed by the miners’ union amount to only $1.50 a week for each married man, and seventy-five cents a week for single men.

— An Austrian journal, the Arbeiter Zeitung declares the recent assassination of officials in Russia to be the work of a vast secret revolutionary society, which embraces the whole of the empire, and numbers 12,000 members, who are drawn from every class of society. The society has ample funds, is well organized, and every member of it has sworn to give his life, if required, for the cause.

— Bishop O’Gorman, of South Dakota, arrived in New York, August 12, after a three months’ tour abroad, bringing with him a present from Pope Leo to President Roosevelt, and also a letter from the secretary of state for the pope addressed to Secretary of State Hay. What the import of the letter from the pope’s secretary of state is, he does not say.

— The coronation of King Edward VII took place without any disturbing incident on the appointed date, August 9. The king appeared to be in fairly good health, and seemed not to feel the strain of the imposing coronation ceremonies. The crowds in the streets of London were very enthusiastic, and there is great satisfaction throughout the empire over the successful outcome of the event. It is worth mentioning that King Edward’s coronation overthrows a prediction of the soothsayers to which many people had given credence.

— Plans for a deep waterway from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi are under consideration by army engineers.

— Premier Combes, of France, says he has obtained possession of official reports of a royalist plot to overthrow the government.

— The revolution and misgovernment in Hayti and San Domingo have led to serious talk of the annexation of the island to the United States.

— The legal restriction against high buildings has been removed in Paris, and the erection of “sky scrapers” is anticipated in the French capital.

— The Cleveland, Ohio, board of health have begun a war against dirty bank notes in that city, claiming that smallpox and other contagious diseases are spread by the circulation of such germ-infected currency.

— An epidemic of typhoid fever which now prevails in Chicago, was supposed to be due to the use of impure water until the health department made an investigation, and found that it is mainly due to bad vegetables and infected milk.

— A dispatch from Rome states that the action of the Philippine friars in selling their lands to syndicates of laymen is disapproved at the Vatican. The lands are considered to be church property, inalienable without the consent of Rome.

— A riot occurred at a coal mine in Duryea, Pa., August 14, resulting in the wounding of two men and the shutting down of the mine. In the Shenandoah district the strikers have made life unsafe for nonunion miners, and even women and children are threatened with personal harm.

— The statement comes from Washington that while the United States government regards the proposed Cuban loan of $35,000,000 as a violation of Cuba’s agreement with the United States, the latter will not interfere with the effort of Cuba to negotiate the loan.

— The automobile is acquiring a considerable reputation as an instrument of slaughter. The latest and perhaps most sensational occurrence in this line was the killing of Mr. Charles Fair, of San Francisco, son of the millionaire, in an automobile wreck near Paris, France. His wife was with him, and was also killed. The machine was going at the rate of a mile a minute, when a tire burst, and the automobile swerved sidewise, dashed up an embankment, turned a somersault, and crashed into a tree. Mr. Fair and his wife being buried beneath the wreck.

— A telegram from Pierre, S. D., gives particulars of the organization of a farmers’ trust, to be known as the Farmers’ National Co-operative Exchange Company. The trust has filed articles of incorporation, with a capital of $50,000,000. The purposes of the trust, the dispatch says, “are to buy, sell, and deal in grain, provisions, live stock, and all kinds of produce, on commission and otherwise, and for that purpose build and equip grain elevators, warehouses, cold storage plants, stockyards, and whatever may be necessary to carry on the business of the corporation. One fourth of the capital stock will be used for building the elevators, yards, branch offices, etc., and another fourth will be made a cash fund for the purpose of dealing in cash, grain, and provisions on the board of trade. The remaining half of the capital stock will be left virtually with the farmers in various banks where the money has been raised, to enable them to carry their crops for a more favorable market.”

— Pope Leo having kept silent while the French government was closing the religious schools in France, the Gaulois says it is because the pope fears the abolition of the concordat with France, which is described as an agreement “resembling a marriage contract between the church and the state.”

— The long-considered project of laying a Pacific Ocean cable seems now to have a fair prospect of early realization. President Roosevelt having authorized Attorney-General Knox to close a contract with the Pacific Commercial Cable Company for the laying of a cable from San Francisco to China by way of Honolulu, Guam, and Manila. It is expected the work will be pushed forward rapidly.