National.

On October 5 in Boston a reception and banquet was tendered the Honourable Artillery Company of London by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. The utmost kindliness of feeling and sentiment was expressed in the various toasts. The Colonel, the Earl of Denbigh and Esmond, said,—

"We once had a difference of opinion on the subject of tea. We thought the tea ought to be made in fresh water and hot. You thought it ought to be made in salt water and cold. That was a trifling thing. Bunker Hill has already been disposed of by that Union Jack I have noticed flying there as we disembarked. Then there were some hard knocks on each side, and for some considerable time after that there were hard words at intervals. Then, I think it was soon after the last edition of hard words, that we had come to us the news that a little band of our friends, the Ancients were going to visit London, and all of us said that we bore our friends across the water no ill will for the hard things they had said about us, let's see if they bear any ill will for the hard things we have said about them. Let's see if we cannot give them a downright good reception."

Senator Hoar, replying to the toast Old Mother England," said,—

"We may not always be ready to admit it, but there is nothing that touches the heart of an American, certainly of a Massachusetts man or a Boston man, more than an honor or kindness from England. It gave us an infinite pleasure when you put the bust of Lowell, our Boston poet, and Longfellow, our Cambridge poet, in Westminster Abbey. There is another monument erected there, placed, as the inscription tells us, by the Province of Massachusetts Bay in America. It is to the memory of Lord Howe, an honored Englishman, who was beloved here as at home. On that monument there is an allegorical figure, which I think cannot be found anywhere else in sculpture, the Genius of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. . . .

"I suppose that before our Revolution, Massachusetts had the best and mildest government on the face of the earth; better and milder than that which England enjoyed at home. But as Edmund Burke, the greatest English statesman of his day, declared, 'It was the English constitution which triumphed in the American revolution.' It was a theory and not a practice of taxation against which we took up arms."

"We hope you may feel at home while you are here. When you go back to old Mother England, tell her her boys are contented and happy and growing. Give her our best love. Tell her we think of her with nothing but friendliness and good will. We have no sore feeling left even for the spankings she used to give us. If she did not spare the rod she did not spoil the child. . . ."

Professor F. C. de Sumichrast, speaking for "Harvard University," said,—

"When it has been given to an Englishman to see the Union Jack flying from the top of Bunker Hill Monument, side by side with Old Glory, he feels that he need not despair of the Republic. Perhaps the next thing will be to have one of your countrymen brought over to deliver the Fourth of July oration.

"The real duty of the United States and Great Britain, the real duty of our united nations, of our race, which is one, of our stock, which is the same, of our blood which Perry proclaimed by the thunder of his guns to be alike in the veins of Americans and Britons, our duty is not to foster and keep alive the ancient grudges, and the hatreds of yore, but to fulfil the mission entrusted to us to carry out the noblest task ever laid upon a race—the bearing through the wide world the light of political truth; the bestowing on all nations the blessing of true liberty; the giving to all men their birthright of equality before the law; the establishment in all lands of even-handed justice; the spread among all inhabitants of the universe of the benefits of the highest Christian civilization."

By the terms of Article 4 of the treaty between China and the United States China undertakes to abolish all transit taxes and especially the "likin" taxes, and to abolish all the barriers and stations for their collection. The United States, in consideration of this change, agrees, if all the other treaty Powers do likewise, to pay at the port of entry a surtax of 1 1/2 times the import tariff. This will exempt from all other taxes whatever within the Empire. Exports from China shall pay an ad valorem duty of 7 1/2 per cent, to be collected at the port of export.

Other sections refer to rights and privileges of diplomatic officers, consuls, and United States citizens in China; establishment of bonded warehouses; trade-marks, copyrights, and patents; uniform national coinage to be legal tender throughout the Empire; free exercise of religion for the Chinese Christians, the right of missionaries to rent property in perpetuity; and, at the request of the Chinese Government, the prohibition by the United States of the importation of morphia and instruments for its use; the opening of free ports in Manchuria; revision of regulations concerning mines, and the opening of them to American enterprise.

President Roosevelt said to the labor leaders who had a conference with him the other day,—

"I am the President of all the people of the United States without regard to creed, color, birthplace, occupation, or social conditions. My aim is to do equal and exact justice as among them all.

"In the employment and dismissal of men in the Government service I can no more recognize the fact that a man does or does not belong to a union as being for or against him than I can recognize the fact that he is a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile as being for or against him."

Sir Thomas Lipton announces that he will offer a cup of the value of $2,500 for an ocean race from Sandy Hook to the Needles, Isle of Wight. The race will be open to schooners, sloops, and yawls, and there will be no time allowance. Sir Thomas suggests that May would be the best month for the race.

In addition to this cup, the Atlantic Yacht Club, which will have the custody of the trophy, has offered prizes of $500, $300, and $200 for the yachts finishing first, second, and third.

The last race between yachts across the ocean was that between the schooners Dauntless and Coronet in 1887, Coronet winning, sailing 2,949 miles in 14 days 3 hours 30 minutes.

The Philadelphia Free Public Library has undertaken a movement to classify its fiction list under the heads of "adventure," "school tales," "character sketches," "military stories," "sea tales," "historical novels," etc., to show that one half of its fiction at least is "serious fiction." Other libraries in the United States are expected to cooperate.

Foreign.

Last week Japan despatched troops to Korea to guard her interests there. Her fleet was already in Ma-San-Pho harbor. Reports say that Russia has sent troops forward from Manchuria toward the Korean frontier, and that ninety war vessels of all classes have come to anchor beside the Japanese fleet.

Meanwhile, on October 8, the important commercial treaty between the United States and China was signed, securing to the former two open ports in Manchuria, and also on the same day a treaty between China and Japan.

Despatches sent from Pekin on September 8, announced that Russia had promised to restore Niu-Chwang and evacuate Mukden Province October 8, provided that China agreed to certain conditions, the most important of which were that China should undertake that no portion of the territory beceded to any other Power; that no concession be granted to Great Britain unless granted equally to Russia; that there should be no increase of the present import tariff on goods entering Manchuria by railway; that Russia should maintain her own military telegraph line along the railway, and that the Russo-Chinese Bank agencies in Manchuria should be guarded by Chinese soldiers.

To these comparatively unobjectionable stipulations Russia on the following day added two other demands which were quite the reverse. They were: That Russia should be allowed landing stages on the Sungari River, with the right to guard them with Russian troops, and that Russia should have the right to maintain post stations along the main route from Tsitsihar to Blagovestchensk on the Amur River.

China received the new Russian conditions with satisfaction, not recognizing their real significance and regarding them as unimportant. China now believes that the conditions were purposely made impossible of acceptance in order to justify a continued occupation.

The Venezuela-German Tribunal sitting at Caracas, has officially closed seventy-three claims presented against the Government involving a total of $1,317,817. Two claims amounting to $116,250 were withdrawn, and one of $558,000 for the closing of navigation of the river Catatumbo, the Colombian boundary, and the causing thereby of losses to German traders, was disallowed by the umpire, General D. M. Duffield of Detroit. The rest of the claims, which aggregate $634,800, were discussed and recognized and the claimants were awarded $389,095. According to the protocol the awards are payable in gold. The German railroad obtains payment in full of its claim, and in addition a sum of $800 a day as indemnity for the interruption of traffic during a period of seventeen days.

Russia, Hungary, and Austria have presented an identical note to Turkey, which, it is hoped, will result in the formation of a council of administration composed of the foreign consuls in Macedonia and other disturbed districts to carry out the reformatory plans of the Powers.