Today -100: May 10, 1914: What scares French ghosts?

Constitutionalists suggest that American citizens get out of Tampico, which they’re planning to start bombarding soon.

Mexican Freemasons break off relations with the American Freemasons.

Headline of the Day -100: “Spread of Leprosy Alarms Frenchmen.” Among other possibly fictitious cases, “the story is told of Michel, a grave digger at Trinité, near Saint-Roch, whose face was such a horror that the inhabitants finally demanded his removal on the ground that the dead were so terrified that they were unable to rest.”

French newspapers have been claiming that various recent explosions (on a battleship, on other ships, in coal mines) were caused by wireless waves.

Germany denies planning to expel all French citizens from Alsace-Lorraine (it is definitely refusing to renew residency permits, but it’s unclear in what numbers).

20 cases of arms that were shipped from Boston are seized in Belfast.

1,100 cans of opium are seized in San Diego from a ship headed for Ensenada that made an emergency stop in SD to refuel. Officials eventually decided that the ship hadn’t legally landed and gave back the opium, which is intended for the Chinese population of Mexico.

There’s an earthquake in Sicily.

China says it will execute anyone under 40 smoking opium in Changtu; those older than 40 will be jailed.

Italy tells Colorado that it will demand damages for each of the Italian citizens (somewhere in the double figures) killed during the coal strike.

Le Matin has an article about Germany’s predilection for eating dogs.

The NYT has a fierce editorial against the practice of people whose secretaries telephone you and ask you to “hold the wire” for them. “Impudence could not go much further... the telephone... has developed in its use and abuse a tendency to discourtesy, a shameless regard of human rights.” The Times also thinks women talk on the phone too much.

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