—The University of Cambridge has conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws upon King Oscar of Sweden.
—The National Starch Company has been incorporated at Trenton, N. J., with a capital of $9,500,000.
—About 1,000 more British troops have arrived at Beira, Portuguese East Africa. Among them is Lord Dunraven.
—Official returns of the French municipal elections show that the Republicans carried 24,832 out of 33,942 communes.
—Senator Foraker has been chosen to make the speech at the Republican Convention, renominating McKinley for president.
—The United States Supreme Court has decided that the inheritance tax provision of the War Revenue act is constitutional.
—The Indianapolis (Ind.) school board has rescinded the action of the old board, that when a teacher marries she must resign.
—The engagement of Princess Victoria, daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales, to Prince George of Greece, is announced.
—At Newport News a steamer is being loaded with 7,299 tons of steel rails for the Siberian railway under construction by Russia.
—No fewer than 12,000,000 acres of land have been made fruitful in the Sahara desert, by means of irrigation from artesian wells.
—Vice-Admiral Ahmed Pasha, of Turkey, has arrived in this country, ostensibly to study the construction of warships in the United States.
—Two hundred and thirty-five cases of bubonic plague have thus far been reported in Sidney, Australia, of which seventy-nine have proved fatal.
—Miss Ella Little, an American, and the first woman to receive a doctor's degree from Heidelberg, Germany, summa cum laude, has been appointed a regular lecturer at that university.
—A bill has passed the House of Representatives, requiring that “labor on all government work in public and private shops, be limited to eight hours a day except in times of war.”
—The United States Senate has adopted a resolution directing the secretary of the Navy to build a government armor plant, provided that armor plate can not be bought of private corporations at $445 a ton.
—The fund being raised for placing busts of Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan in Memorial Hall, at the United States Military Academy, West Point, has been increased by a check for $500 from President McKinley.
—Lord Salisbury, in a recent public speech, said that England had no security or confidence in the sympathy of other nations, except the efficiency of her own defense, and that Englishmen should be prepared to protect their homes.
—During the recent opening of the German pavilion, at the Paris Exposition, the hoisting of a German flag, by Americans, on a boat on the Seine River, caused quite a sensation in the French capital. It was the first time such a thing had been done for thirty years.
—It is stated by the Literary Digest, that “among the most aggressive and bitter agitations of the day, is the propaganda, in France directed against the Protestants, which has become a fixed and persistent fact in the religious thought of the republic. . . . The attacks, we are told are increasing in intensity and number.” The anti-Protestant movement is to prove to the French republic that the Protestants are the secret enemies of France, and friends of England and of Germany. The Protestants are much alarmed, and are agitating counter movements. It is a noteworthy fact that many of the leading offices and high state positions in France, are filled by Protestants.
—London has received the following dispatch from Lord Roberts, dated at Johannesburg, May 31, 2 P. M.: “Her majesty’s forces are now in possession of Johannesburg, and the British flag floats over the government buildings.” The fall of Pretoria, without a struggle, is expected at any hour. President Kruger has fled to Watervalboven, on the way to Delagoa Bay. The newspapers state that “the last stage of the march between Bloemfontein and Pretoria has been hardly more than a holiday promenade, and President Kruger’s prediction that the price (of Pretoria’s surrender) would ‘stagger humanity,’ has not been fulfilled. Owing to the ‘tame ending’ of the war, ‘there was no revel of public rejoicing’ in London, at the news.”14
—Indiana capitalists will build a mill at Cairo, Ill., to manufacture paper from cottonwood.
—Turkey has issued an irade prohibiting the importation of all electrical apparatus, including bells.
—Six thousand four hundred and fifty-eight more British troops are at present at sea, on their way to South Africa.
—Wednesday, May 16, 5,683 immigrants arrived at New York—more than 1,000 in excess of all previous one-day records.
—By changing the dials of water meters, Chicago has been robbed of $200,000 by employees of the water department of the city.
—News from Guam Island reports that out of a garrison of 141 men serving on shore, 57 were on the sick list March 1, nine deaths having occurred.
—In order to reduce the Treasury surplus, Secretary of the Treasury Gage has issued a call for the redemption of the $25,364,500 of outstanding two-per-cent bonds of the funded loan of 1891.
—The Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals presented its report on the Nicaragua Canal bill, and urged prompt action by Congress; but the Senate refused to consider the bill at present.
—A proclamation, purported to have been issued by Aguinaldo, has been circulated in Manila, Philippines. It advises the Filipinos as to the course they should pursue toward the expected commission from the United States.
—May 18, the House of Representatives passed a bill to reimburse the Confederate soldiers who surrendered at Appomattox, for the loss of horses and other personal effects taken from them in violation of the terms of Lee’s surrender to Grant.
—A Washington dispatch, dated May 15, states that “the House Committee on Judiciary to-day agreed to report favorably a joint resolution for an amendment to the Constitution giving Congress power to regulate trusts.” The resolution embodies nine propositions.
—Lionel Decle, who is conducting a Cape-to-Cairo expedition, fitted out by the London Daily Telegraph, sends by wire and steamer from Uvira, north of Lake Tanganyika, the following: “The situation here is critical. The Germans have forcibly seized all the Congo Free State territory up to Rusizi River, occupying 3,000 square miles of Congo territory, with 1,000 soldiers, fifteen officers, and cannon.”
—According to the Christian Work, “if the Methodist Conference had confined its censure in the matter of the canteen to the attorney-general, who misinterpreted the law, and not to the president, it would, in the opinion of many, have pursued the wiser course, and one more in accord with justice.” But, the question arises, Why so? Is President McKinley bound to obey the decisions of the attorney-general?
—At the annual meeting of the Archæological Institute of America, held in New York recently, Professor J. H. Thayer, of Harvard, made a report concerning the founding of the American School for Oriental Research and Study in Palestine, which is to be opened next October, in Jerusalem, with Prof. C. Torrey, of Yale, as its director. This school has been made possible by the co-operation of twenty different American colleges.
