Today -100: July 15, 1914: Of ghosts, nagging Villas, delirious monks, and altitude

London sees its first public performance of Ibsen’s 1881 play “Ghosts,” which somehow evaded the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship despite the play being about venereal disease, a subject, the London Times wrote in 1891 when it was given a private performance, “not usually discussed outside the walls of a hospital”. Earlier this year a private fund-raising performance (those are not subject to censorship) was held with the same cast for the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage.

After any number of rumors, it seems that Gen. Huerta’s family is finally really fleeing Mexico City and, presumably, the country. With them were the families of the minister of war and other officials.

Headline of the Day -100: “Villa Nagging Carranza.” Doesn’t want him becoming provisional president (there’s some disagreement over the terms of the agreement, the Plan of Guadalupe, signed by the rebels before they began rebelling).

There’s a debate in the French Senate on the subject of military preparedness, with Sen. Charles Humbert saying that French forts are in terrible shape, with ill-repaired artillery and wireless. He says that whenever the German Army’s wireless set at Metz transmits, the French one in Verdun across the border stops working. He also says that the army is short of boots, you know, those things armies march on. The Minister of War admits most of this, but says the artillery should be in good shape by 1917.

Rasputin has had two operations. “He was delirious almost all last night”. Insert your own joke here. Peasants try to storm the building where his would-be assassin is being held.

Aviation continues to set records. Four years ago I reported a new altitude record of one mile. Since then the record has been broken with monotonous regularity, but since this may be the last time before the war, I’ll just note that we’re now up to 4 3/4 miles, set by Heinrich Olerich (who the NYT helpfully informs us is German).

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