— Archbishop Chappelle, the papal delegate to the Philippines, has arrived at Manila.
— The basis of a new treaty between Spain and the United States has just been drawn up.
— The Russian government objects to the censorship over telegrams to and from South Africa.
— It is estimated that the Nicaragua Canal will cost the United States government $40,000,000.
— M. Dreyfus has taken a villa in Cairo, Egypt, and will spend the winter there with his family.
— Russia is planning to dig a canal from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Its length will be 994 miles, but only 125 miles of artificial excavation will be necessary.
— A rigid enforcement of the curfew law in Indianapolis, Ind., has caused a decrease of eighty per cent in the commitment of the young of that city to reform schools.
— A concern in Iowa is making farm wagons wholly of steel, and it can scarcely fill the orders that pour in from the wheat-growers out in Dakota and other parts of the West.
— A dispatch from St. Petersburg, Russia, says that ten villages in the Alchakalak district of the government of Tiflis were destroyed by earthquake, January 4, and 600 people killed.
— Rev. Brooks, of the Church Missionary Society, stationed at Ping Yin, China, was murdered in that vicinity by a band called the “boxers,” who are killing many native Christians.
— The congregation of the University of Chicago, by a vote of twenty to sixteen, passed a resolution favoring the use of the reformed spelling adopted by the National Educational Association.
— President Steyn, of the Orange Free State, has issued a declaration that every white man, irrespective of nationality, is liable to be compelled to fight for the defense of the country against the British.
— A Washington dispatch says that President Schurman will not return to the Philippines when the other members of the Philippine Commission go back to Manila. Admiral Dewey’s return is also more than doubtful.
— The British have crossed the Tugela River, in their efforts to relieve Ladysmith. Several attacks are being made by them on the Boers, to divide their intrenched lines. The news censor allows only conflicting statements to come over the wires at present, to mislead those friendly to the Boers.
— Miss Lillian Whiting, who is the literary executor of the late Miss Kate Field, writes to the New York Herald, that “she has had frequent communications with her friend since her death, through the mediumship of the famous Mrs. Piper. Nearly everything that Miss Whiting does in connection with Miss Field’s affairs, is by the latter’s instruction direct from the other world.” This is verily the age of Spiritualism.
— Dec. 30, 1899, the British cruiser “Magicienne” seized the German steamer “Bundesrath,” in Delagoa Bay and took her to Durban, on the ground that German officers and men intending to join the Boer army, were on board. January 4 the British seized another German vessel, the “General,” at Aden, and compelled the ship to discharge her cargo. Both of these seizures have intensified the anti-British feeling in Germany, and some of the papers speak savagely of the seizures.
— Great Britain and Germany have both served notice on the United States that “they will protest against fortification of the Nicaragua Canal if that waterway be constructed by the American government.” These notices, it is said, were filed within three days (January 17) by British Ambassador Pauncefote and German Ambassador Von Holleben, at Washington, and “will be followed later, if necessary, by formal or written protests.” France, Russia, and perhaps other maritime powers, will join Britain and Germany in this protest, if the United States “persists in constructing the canal upon the basis provided in the bill;” that is, for the benefit of the United States alone. What is demanded by these powers is a neutral isthmian canal.
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— M. A. San Clemente, the president of Colombia, died January 8.
— It is declared, on British authority, that the Boer army numbers 87,000 men.
— The Mississippi River is frozen solid at St. Louis, Mo., for the first time in many years.
— It is estimated that the present war with the Transvaal costs England $10,000,000 a week.
— The French government has ordered a squadron to San Domingo, to enforce payment of French claims.
— France, Italy, and Belgium have adopted twenty-four-hour time, and say thirteen o’clock instead of 1 P. M.
— Last year 305 persons were convicted of lèse majesté in Germany, and the sentences aggregated 100 years in prison.
— For the first six months of 1899 the Methodists report an actual decline in membership of 24,000 communicants.
— King Charles, in his message at the opening of the Portuguese parliament, January 2, failed to mention Delagoa Bay.
— The money in United States savings banks exceeds the combined deposits of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, by $326,000,000.
— Five hundred steel cars of special pattern have been ordered from a Pittsburg, Pa., firm, for the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean railroad of France.
— The Chinese are reported to have routed the French, near Wang Chuan, the battle occurring December 10, 11. The French loss was thirty killed.
— The broom manufacturers of the United States and Canada, in session in Chicago, have advanced the price of brooms twenty-five cents a dozen.
— The British people are beginning to talk of a successor to Lord Wolseley, in their anger and impatience at the defeats met in South Africa.
— The Austro-Hungarian government will immediately spend $100,000,000 for increasing the army and navy, in consequence of the serious European situation.
— Portugal’s minister in Berlin, Germany, declares that his country will not sell Delagoa Bay, as the transfer to England would be unfriendly to other nations.
— The Figaro, a Paris paper, favors an increase of the German navy, as a check to England. This is quite a thing for a French paper to do, in view of the war of 1870.
— Experiments with the Marconi system of wireless telegraphy in the Transvaal are being carried on with difficulty, owing to the extraordinary amount of iron in neighboring hills.
— Nearly 2,000 letters addressed to Santa Claus were received this year at the Dead Letter Office. Why should children be encouraged to believe in such a stupendous lie as that Santa Claus exists?
— During the year 1899 there were, in the United States, 107 lynchings, 6,225 murders, and 131 executions by hanging. One hundred and three of the lynchings, and 100 of the hangings, were in the South.
— In a total of about 16,000,000 voters in the United States, there are 800,000 who are Catholics. It is evident, therefore, that those who do not profess Catholicism are helping Rome in political affairs in this country.
— Dr. von Block, the Russian writer, announces that “the proposed Russian war exhibit at the Paris Exposition for 1900 will be omitted, upon the czar’s order.” Nicolas II evidently prefers to exhibit his war powers elsewhere, and on the quiet.
— The latest statistics from France show that the number of deaths last year in that country exceeded by 50,054 that of the previous year’s report, and the number of births has decreased by 15,174, showing a net loss of 65,228. The present population of France is 38,517,975.
— A French naturalist, quoted by Popular Science News, asserts that “if the world should become birdless, man would not inhabit it after nine years’ time, in spite of all the sprays and poisons that could be manufactured for the destruction of insects. The bugs would simply eat up all the orchards and crops in that time.” And yet the women, and city ordinances in many places, continue to encourage the ruthless slaughter of the birds!
— Lake Michigan is now connected with the Mississippi River by a canal forty miles in length. At the top the channel averages 201 feet wide, and at the bottom 160 feet, with a depth of thirty-eight feet. The work on this canal was begun Sept. 3, 1892, and completed in the closing days of 1899, at a cost of $33,000,000. The full capacity of the channel, when all obstacles are removed, will be about 300,000 cubic feet a minute; but at present only about one sixth of that amount has been admitted into the canal. By this engineering feat, the flow of the Chicago River has been reversed, and it has been made a tributary of the Mississippi River, through the Des Plaines and the Illinois River. There is a slight, but perceptible flow westward, and, “after a long period of hesitancy as to which direction it should flow, the Chicago River is finally headed for the Gulf of Mexico. The heretofore muddy river is already taking on the bluish tinge of Lake Michigan.
— A dispatch from Rome says that Great Britain has ordered a number of guns from Italy.
— The Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn, the well-known Roman Catholic priest, died the 7th inst.
— Eugene Haupick, a Russian officer, declares that “the Transvaal war will be the tomb of England.” He also asserts that “the whole campaign was carefully prepared at Potsdam, Germany, as well as the strategy planned for the Boer generals to execute.”
— The “Bundesrath” incident is at last settled. The British government has acknowledged the seizure of the vessel as unjust, and undertakes to foot the bill of damages. Lord Salisbury and Count Hatzfeldt, the German ambassador in London, adjusted the affair between themselves.
— It is reported that “a veritable storm of laughter broke loose in the diet of the Grand Duchy of Baden, the 16th inst., when a petition, signed by 300 citizens of the good old town of Offenburg, was read, calling upon the diet to pave the way for a peaceable intervention between Britain and the Boers.”
