Items of Interest January 25, 1900 Issue

Items of Interest

The Philippine commission has completed its report and dispatched it to the public printer. The report is voluminous and will be divided into several volumes. One of the interesting features will be a splendid atlas of the Philippine archipelago, especially prepared for the commission by the Jesuits. The first volume will be brought out immediately. It is devoted to the political issues involved in the acquisition of the Philippines, followed by chapters on various subjects—government, currency, the Chinese question, naval requisites, etc. The Second volume is devoted to the resources of the island. Other volumes contain the great mass of testimony taken by the commission in pursuance of the President's instructions.

The sixteenth annual report of the United States Civil Service Commission shows that in the classified service there are seventy-five thousand positions, and in the unclassified one hundred and seven thousand positions. The salaries of the entire service amount to about $104,000,000 per annum. During the year 47,956 persons were examined for all branches of the service, and 35,682 passed. The total number of appointments made during the year was 9,056. Of the 17,073 employees in Washington 1,416 are over sixty years of age, 288 over seventy, and 40 over eighty.

F. Cook of the Department of Agriculture says that the United States is paying two hundred million dollars for tropical products, a large part of which can be furnished by Porto Rico and the Philippines. Coffee has been the chief product of Porto Rico, over thirteen million dollars worth of coffee having been exported from the island in a single year, even though the methods of cultivation are of the most primitive character. Sugar lands are receiving attention from American capitalists, and large factories with the most modern facilities are being built.

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