— The rebels in Colombia were recently defeated, losing 600 killed.
— The strike at Pittston, Pa., involving 1,700 iron workers, is at an end.
— The United States war-ship “Hartford” has been ordered to Venezuela.
— Edward Cudahy, of Omaha, Neb., recently paid $25,000 in gold for the release of his fifteen-year-old son from kidnappers.
— Rumania has declined Russia’s offer of a loan of $80,000,000, as the “conditions attached would undermine Rumania’s independence.”
— It is stated that “Russia cedes to Great Britain entire control of the railway from Peking (China) to Shan-hai-kwan, after January 1.”
— The American Express Company distributed $500,000 in gold among its employees, on Christmas day. Every man who had been in the service one year received five dollars.
— A resolution was recently adopted by the Indiana Federation of Labor, asking that “a law be passed prohibiting the employment by street railway companies of conductors or motormen who are addicted to the use of intoxicants.”
— A Chicago weekly states that “Mrs. James Bonner, sixty years old, was found lying dead on a doorstep in Chicago, December 14. When her clothing was searched at the county morgue, $1,374 was found hidden in the bosom of her dress.”
— In spite of the great business done by the United States postal service, the government will be obliged to meet a deficiency of $5,385,688 in connection with the cost of the service. This is due to the abuse of the privileges accorded to second-class mail matter.
— Agitators against the docking of horses’ tails have won a great victory in London, England. Queen Victoria, in sending out an order that none of her horses be docked, also announced that she had persuaded the Prince of Wales to follow her example. With royalty against the practice, it is likely that a docked horse may soon be a rare sight in the United States.
— British agents are buying 50,000 cavalry horses and mules in this country, for the British army.
— The New York City post office distributed 12,000,000 letters or mail packages the day before Christmas.
— Citizens of Paterson, N. J., will raise “the $200,000 necessary to keep the Rogers locomotive works there.”
— A number of Austrian manufacturers recently formed “an association for insurance against strikes.”
— Venezuela recently paid ex-President Harrison’s fee of $100,000 for arbitrating the boundary dispute with British Guiana.
— The American Federation of Labor, in session at Louisville, Ky., denounced Secretary of the Treasury Gage for admitting J. A. Dowie’s lace makers.
— All the Powers in China are at present buying large quantities of rice, to distribute to destitute Chinese. Russia leads, with a purchase of $700,000 worth.
— The strike of the Santa Fé Railway telegraphers is ended, the strikers being defeated. The railway officials refuse to recognize the Order of Railway Telegraphers.
— In Arkansas and West Virginia 650,000 acres of land has been offered to the American Transvaal Company, for Boer immigrants. Also a Kenosha, Wis., land company has offered farms to 5,000 Boers.
— Benjamin Harrison, Melville W. Fuller, John W. Griggs, and George Gray have been named by President McKinley as the American members of the International Board of Arbitration. This board was provided for by the Peace Conference at The Hague, and will be composed of 104 members.
— The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway has “instituted a house-to-house canvass in Chicago, with a view to causing the people to test the facilities of their suburban service, and free tickets are left at the houses, which entitle the holder to one free ride in either direction.” There is enterprise for you.
— An exchange states that “the Russian authorities, when requested by the Turkish representatives, have heretofore arrested Ottoman subjects residing in Russia. A recent decree of the Russian Minister of the Interior abrogates this practice, so that Turkey can no longer apply conscription to her subjects inhabiting Russian territory, and is thus deprived of an important military resource. The Porte is strenuously endeavoring to obtain the revocation of the decree.”
— The French government has decided to lay submarine cables of its own, to communicate with its colonies. It seems that during the Transvaal and Chinese campaigns most of the messages sent by the French government “had to be dispatched over lines under British control,” and that “even the communications that pass between the home government and the various ministers abroad have to pass through English hands. It is proposed to establish four cable lines interconnecting the colonies and the home country.”
— Mrs. Carrie Nation, president of the W. C. T. U. of Barber County, Kan., walked into the Carey Hotel saloon, at Wichita, the 27th ult., with a large bundle of stones under her arm. She began “hurling stones at mirrors, paintings, and men,” before she was arrested. Thirty years ago her first husband died of delirium tremens. She defies the saloon men to prosecute her, as Kansas has prohibition laws, saloons being illegal. Two months ago she wrecked two saloons at Kiowa, and went unpunished, the saloon men being afraid to prosecute her.
— The Chicago and Northwestern Railway is arranging a permanent pension system, whereby efficient employees will be rewarded. The plan, which will thus benefit the 27,000 employees of this railway, “takes in every employee of the road, from the highest to the lowest,” and provides that “any employee who is between sixty-five and sixty-nine years of age who has been for thirty years in the employ of the Northwestern Road, and who is incapacitated for service by age, will receive a pension of one per cent per month, calculated upon his monthly rate of wages for the last ten years of his service with the company.”
— It seems that “the Christian Commonwealth Colony at Equality, Ga., has disbanded, and its 1,000 acres of land and the improvements thereon will pass under the hammer. . . . The trouble began, as it has done sooner or later in all social commonwealths, when some of the members failed to do their proper share of work. The majority of the colonists voted to expel them. The drones, however, resisted, and employed counsel to plead their alleged rights in the courts. The colony could not survive the strife, and so the old story of another failure is now recorded.” The Independent further says: “Colonies in this country have always been short-lived, except those that are held together by the strongest kind of a religious bond, as the Shakers. . . . The attempts to practice socialism amid the cold world of competition are like a lump of ice trying to keep congealed in a tropical sea.”
13— The estate of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt has been officially appraised at $72,500,000.
— William Jennings Bryan will edit and publish a weekly newspaper, the Commoner, at Lincoln, Neb.
— A coal deposit, estimated to contain sixteen hundred million tons, has been discovered at Barmoor, Hungary.
— Tecumseh, O. T., and Coalgate, I. T., will soon be connected by a $500,000 electric railroad, 125 miles long.
— The citizens of Sing-Sing, N. Y., have petitioned the Legislature to change the village name to Ossining.
— Twenty Chinamen, arrested for posting anti-foreign placards near Canton, have been condemned to death.
— It is reported that the Vanderbilts will build a great water-power plant at Lockport, N. Y., rivaling that at Niagara Falls.
— The plant of the Lane and Bodley machine works in Cincinnati, Ohio, was recently destroyed by fire. Loss, $250,000.
— The fortieth annual convention of the National Educational Association will be held in Detroit, Mich., July 8-12, 1901.
— Queen Victoria has prorogued the British Parliament until February, expressing thanks for the liberal war funds voted.
— San Francisco, Cal., was recently visited by a severe wind and rain storm, telegraph and telephone wires being torn down.
— The government of Rumania will not lease its petroleum fields to the Standard Oil Company, having broken off negotiations with the same.
— An enterprising American has erected steam pumps on the Jordan, it is said, and is supplying churches all over Europe with genuine Jordan water.
— Another trust has been formed; for it seems that “European arctic explorers are confronted with a scarcity of polar dogs, an American having cornered the supply.”
— It is estimated that of the 550,000,000 feet of logs cut in the Maine forests this season, 225,000,000 feet will be sent to the pulp mills for paper making, instead of to the sawmills.
— Italy has a surplus of 5,000,000 lire ($950,000), “the result of increased revenue, which exceeded the estimates by 32,000,000 lire, and the receipts of the last year by 25,000,000.”
— Belgium has a population of 597 persons to the square mile, and is the most thickly populated country in Europe, if not in the world. Holland comes next, with 498 persons to the square mile.
— A Chicago dealer who was “guilty of selling oleo-margarine as pure butter, failing to mark the goods, and otherwise scheming to deceive the public,” was recently fined $1,000 and costs, by Judge Kohlsaat, in the federal court.
— The United States Secretary of War has instructed General MacArthur to begin the work of returning 9,000 volunteer troops from the Philippines, in order to permit of their discharge in this country by June 30, 1901.
— It is said that “Massachusetts has now only four towns in which there is no public library, and they are very small ones, being Marlboro, Gay Head, Lakeville, and Norwell. It is doubtful if any other community of 2,800,000 inhabitants can equal that.”
— United States Senator Proctor, of Vermont, has purchased the famous Carrara marble quarries in Italy, for $10,000,000. By this stroke he has virtually obtained control of the world’s marble supply, since he owns and controls the also famous quarries of Vermont.
— Thousands of French-Canadians who had migrated to New England to work in the factories, are now returning to Canada. One reason for this move is that “the Roman Catholic churches in several places have denied them the privilege of having priests of their own tongue.”
— The House of Representatives recently adopted, by a rising vote of 159 to 51, the following amendment to the army reorganization bill, proposed by Mr. Littlefield, of Maine: “The sale of or dealing in beer, wine, or any intoxicating liquor by any persons at any post exchange or canteen, or army transport, or any premises used for military purposes, is forbidden.”
— A dispatch from Constantinople says that the Turkish government has “signed a contract with the Cramps, of Philadelphia, for the construction of a cruiser for the Ottoman navy; the price to be paid is 350,000 pounds, which includes 25,000 pounds as indemnity to the United States for losses sustained by Americans during the Armenian massacres.” Thus the United States may, after all, get that $100,000 or over, that Turkey owes, and that this country has repeatedly tried to secure.
