— It is reported that Crispi, ex-premier of Italy, is dying.
— The Sultan has refused to permit the Greek squadron to visit Turkish ports.
— Tolstoi, who has been seriously ill, is pronounced out of danger by his physicians.
— A $30,000,000 steel trust is to be formed, to compete with the United States Steel Corporation.
— At Mattoon, Ill., incendiary fires destroyed $2,400,000 worth of property during the past few days.
— It is claimed that a plot has been discovered to make Prince Louis Napoleon emperor of France.
— The Transvaal League, of Chicago, has “offered to relieve the British government of the care of Boer prisoners.”
— It is thought that the sun’s rays, concentrated by plate glass windows, started the recent $80,000 fire at Sioux City, Iowa.
— Secretary of War Root has authorized a full flow in the Chicago drainage canal between the hours of 4 P. M. and midnight.
— The Universal Peace Congress closed its session in Buffalo, N. Y., the 17th inst., Alfred H. Love being re-elected president.
— In a recent battle between Mexicans and negroes, near Liberty, N. M., fifteen of the latter were killed. Mexican casualties unknown.
— The Catholic authorities in Manila, Philippine Islands, state that “they have no intention of withdrawing the friars from the Philippines.”
— It is reported from China that “lawlessness has greatly increased in Peking since the policing of the city was restored to the Chinese authorities.”
— About 50,000 garment makers of New York have struck “to compel employers to do away with the sweat-shop system, and to furnish sanitary shops for their employees.”
— A wireless telephone was recently made to work across the Mississippi River, at Minneapolis. The distance was 1,000 feet, and the words were distinctly understood.
— On the 21st inst. the great packing plant of Jacob Dold and Sons, Wichita, Kan., was destroyed by fire, together with about 7,000,000 pounds of meat. Loss, $1,000,000.
— Horatio J. Sprague, United States Consul at Gibraltar since 1848, and “the oldest consul in the American service,” died at that place the 18th inst. He was born Aug. 12, 1823.
— Lord Russell pleaded guilty to bigamy, before the British House of Lords, and has been sentenced to three-months’ imprisonment. His jail quarters are said to be very comfortable, however.
— In his paper read before the International Tuberculosis Congress at London, the 23d inst., Professor Koch, of Berlin, “claims to have demonstrated that consumption is not communicable from animals, or animal products, to man.”
— The war still continues in the Philippines. Gebarro, an insurgent general, has surrendered at Legaspi, Albay Province, with seventy men; and “an American force captured and partly burned Calapan, Mindoro, killing twenty natives.”
— The installation, in London, on the 17th inst., of the Duke of Connaught as Grand Master of British Masons, was attended by 11,000 English Free Masons. Edward VII was formerly Grand Master himself, but resigned upon becoming King.
— Rain brought relief from the long dry spell, in various parts of Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois, the 15th inst. Dispatches state that “at Wichita, Kan., the occasion was celebrated with an impromptu procession, headed by a brass band. At the end of the march a thanksgiving service was held.”
— It is now announced, by the Philippine Civil Commission, that “three-months’ trial of a provincial form of government in the islands of Cebu and Bohol and the Province of Batangas, Luzon, has proved these communities underserving of civil administration, and they are again placed under military control.”
— It is said that “the Europeans in Tientsin distrust China’s pledges, and fear another outbreak.”
— The Danish ministry, formed April 27, 1900, has resigned. King Christian will form a new cabinet at once.
— Owing to the scarcity of water in Manchester, England, the supply is cut off from consumers several hours each day.
— Mrs. Kruger, wife of former President Kruger of the South African Republic, died at Pretoria, from pneumonia, the 21st inst., aged sixty-seven.
— A British column recently captured Commandant Scheeper’s laager, at Cambedoo, South Africa, taking thirty-one prisoners and much ammunition.
— A recent eruption of the volcano Kloet, in northern Java, “killed 700 natives and a number of Europeans, and laid waste the land for miles around.”
— British scientists declare that the conclusions of Dr. Koch on tuberculosis are incorrect, and a government investigation has been demanded, to settle the question.
— The “Deutschland” recently made a new speed record from New York to Plymouth, England. That long course was covered in five days, eleven hours, and five minutes.
— Captain Blackburn, who sailed from Gloucester, Mass., in a twenty-five-foot sailboat, recently arrived at Lisbon, Portugal, the voyage having been made in thirty-eight days.
— The London Times reports that General Baden-Powell is “suffering from overwork and fever, and his medical advisers in South Africa have ordered him to take complete rest and proceed to England.”
— A French submarine boat recently succeeded in attaching a torpedo to a gunboat at Havre, after an eight-mile trip under water. These submarine boats will have to be reckoned with in the next great wars.
— The British under Major Pine-Coffin, recently surprised a Boer commando at Honingspruit, South Africa, “capturing Commandant Hatting and twenty-six others, and killing and wounding seventeen.”
— Dispatches state that “as a result of the encounters between Roman Catholics and Free Thinkers in Saragossa, most of the clergy have left the city; the convents and many churches are closed and barricaded.”
— John Alexander Dowie took out his first naturalization papers at Waukegan, Ill., the 15th inst., renouncing his allegiance to the king of Great Britain and Ireland, and swearing to support the Constitution of the United States.
— According to information received by the State Department, from Commissioner Rockhill, “the formal surrender of Peking to the Chinese authorities is expected to take place August 14, the anniversary of the relief of the legations.”
— A dispatch from Tientsin, China, states that “the strength of the British troops in that city will be increased by 1,000 men;” and also that “the foreign ministers in Peking admit a deadlock in the settlement of the Chinese question.”
— Speaking of the efforts of Russia and Japan to secure the most advantageous position in Korea, the Christian Advocate says that “both countries are acting with great caution, and are watching each other with the utmost vigilance. The Japanese are constantly increasing in number throughout the peninsula, and at the present time about one nineteenth of the shipping of Korea is in their hands. Russia, conscious of Japan’s growing power, is said to be acting with ‘studied conciliation.’ Nevertheless, in the minds of many careful students of the political situation in the East, a conflict between Japan and Russia seems to be inevitable, and may be precipitated at any moment.”
— Russia is now showing her hand in the far East, by “slowly pushing her way toward Peking.” Dispatches from St. Petersburg state that “she has taken possession of Mongolia, having fortified a garrison with infantry and Cossacks at Urga, a Chinese frontier station on the road to Peking, about two hundred miles south of Miakhta. Surveying parties, under the escort of Russian troops, have penetrated as far as the edge of the Great Desert. They are laying out a direct route for a railroad across the desert, to the point of junction with the Mid-Siberian Railway extension now being constructed around the south end of Lake Baikal.” With the many resources at her command, Russia easily leads the other Powers in the East, by securing the lion’s share of the spoils.
