News from Turkey, Russia, and Switzerland
The American squadron which has been sent East to strengthen Minister Leishman's demands upon the Turkish Government, is now at Smyrna, and is expected to remain there until evidence has been given that Turkey will keep her promises. The sultan has granted the American demands, according to report from Constantinople, promising to American schools the same privileges granted to those of other nationalities. The sultan has temporized so long that the American minister prefers to have the squadron remain in Turkish waters until there is some certainty of the sultan's promises being fulfilled. That distressing conditions exist in some parts of Russia is shown in the fact that in fifty of the eastern provinces, one-fourth of the children die before they reach the age of one year, and another fourth never reach the age of fifteen. Increasing numbers of recruits from these districts are being rejected because of physical defects; and these and the high infant death-rate are declared to be directly traceable to semi-starvation. The great Simplon tunnel, connecting Switzerland and northern Europe with Italy, through Milan, has been completed, in so far as to permit of the passage of a work train. The tunnel is twelve and one-half miles long, and the most discouraging engineering difficulties have been overcome in its completion. The list of the identified dead from the terrible train wreck in Colorado reported last week, now numbers 83. Others are still missing, which, with the unidentified, will bring the number to the first estimate of 100. A project is now on foot for the reclamation of Upper Egypt and the Soudan by the use of dams and irrigating ditches. The estimated cost of the undertaking is placed at $100,000,000.