United States Consul-General Gummere at Tangier has been cabled instructions from Secretary Hay for dealing with the brigand, Raisuli, the point of which is a positive injunction to refrain from committing the United States Government to any guarantee of immunity for the brigands or in any way to take any action that would amount to the recognition of the right of brigandage and blackmail in Morocco.
The terms of ransom asked by Rasouli and his band of bandits who kidnapped the American citizen Perdicaris and his stepson Varley in Morocco are considered by the State Department as impossible of acceptance.
A question which has come prominently to the fore in the proceedings of the Methodist-Episcopal General Conference at Los Angeles, is that involving a change in discipline to the extent of entirely removing the Church ban on dancing, card-playing, and theatre-going.
The monthly statement of the public debt shows that at the close of business April 30, 1904, the debt, less cash in the Treasury, amounted to $918,854,058.
To make the final payments to the Panama Canal Company and the Republic of Panama it is probable that another call on the banks for about $20,000,000 will have to made.
