News and Miscellany by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Aug 1, 1912

News and Miscellany

By Editor

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— Fifty million persons pay $15,000,000 a year to see baseball games. One hundred seventy-nine thousand persons paid $350,000 to see one series of baseball games. Baseball magnates pay salaries of $10,000, $12,000, $15,000, and $18,000 to their managers and players. One baseball magnate paid $22,500 for the right to employ a single player.

— A society called "The Big Sisters" has been organized in New York City for helping young girls who are brought before the children's court. Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., has taken an active part in its incorporation. The work of the society is to be similar to that of the Big Brothers, who during the past year have helped 2,195 boys who needed friendly counsel.

— The most powerful poison known is reported to have been extracted by a German chemist from the seeds of the Ricinus, the familiar castor-oil plant, and has been attracting much attention on account of its remarkable properties.

— The Italian government recently informed the powers in an official way that it was ready and anxious to bring the Turco-Italian war to an end. It is rumored that Turkey is inclined to yield Tripoli, provided Italy renounces claim to Ben-Ghazi.

— Train service in the West is in some cases setting an example to the rest of the country. At the recent electrical convention held in Seattle, it is said, several of the crowded, transcontinental trains arrived ahead of schedule, and in no case was a train behind time.

— The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle in Ireland and the north of England has assumed grave dimensions. Cases of the disease are reported from all sections of the country, and the importation of cattle from Ireland, where the disease had its origin, has been stopped.

— The waiters' strike in New York City, which for several weeks made dining in the hotels and large restaurants an adventure of uncertain outcome, was finally called off by the strikers' officials. The terms offered by the employers before the strike ended conceded the abolition of fines and the extension of certain privileges, but denied recognition of the union.

— The empress of Japan has given 100,000 yen (about $50,000) "for the encouragement of relief work in time of peace." In the announcement of the empress's gift was the declaration of her belief that "if the Red Cross Societies of various nations help one another in the work of relief in time of peace, these nations will naturally come into more and more friendly relation with one another, thus realizing the aim and principle of the Red Cross."

— Without means, the sultan, Mohammed Rashid, former ruler of Zanzibar, is in Paris bartering for the sale of his personal decorations, jewels, and uniforms, the past glories of his regal splendor, in order to obtain pocket-money enough to make life possible with the paltry allowance made him by the British government. Since the sultan was dethroned on account of his refusal to attend the coronation of King George, claiming that as a ruling monarch it was sufficient for him merely to send a representative, which he did, the British government has allowed him $25,000 a year.

— An American consular report states that measures are again being taken by the Turkish government to have a safe harbor constructed at Jaffa, forty miles west of Jerusalem. The danger of making a landing at Jaffa has not only deterred many from visiting Palestine, but there are periods of sometimes more than a week when landing in rowboats is absolutely impossible on account of the surf dashing against a row of rocks. Steamers that call at Jaffa anchor about 1,000 yards from the shore. The United States consul at Jerusalem estimates the cost of the undertaking at not less than $4,000,000.

— Government reports show that there are to-day more than 67,000,000 sheep in the United States.

— The United States Senate has finally passed a bill providing the sum of $250,000 for a Negro exposition in 1913, to celebrate fifty years of freedom.

— The spread of socialism among American colleges is indicated in the report made public recently by Harry W. Laidlaw, organizer for the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Chapters of this society are now to be found in forty-nine American colleges, an increase of twenty since January 1.

— The austerities of the Vatican have been so far relaxed, it is reported, as to allow the introduction of a moving-picture machine into that papal "prison," and the Pope, for the first time in his life, has enjoyed the diversion of seeing the moving films. Views of his old home, Venice, were particularly appreciated.

— President Taft has just made considerable changes in national forests in Montana, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California, through proclamations modifying the boundary lines, the net result being to bring down the total gross area of the national forests to about 187,400,000 acres, of which nearly 27,000,000 acres are in Alaska.

— Desiring to do away with all foreigners, the Chinese National Assembly has passed the first reading of a bill providing for Chinese control of the post-office. If it becomes a law, about 150 foreigners will be dismissed. Commercial interests in China are aroused, and ask that the powers intervene, as they believe foreign management is necessary.

— Six per cent of the accidents that occur to aviators, says an authority on the subject, are due to sheer recklessness, ten per cent to atmospheric conditions, twenty-five per cent to poor construction of the aeroplanes, and twenty-five per cent to lack of natural aptitude on the part of the operators. Insufficient training and misconception of the limitations of the aeroplane are responsible for the remainder of the accidents.