National.

The chief of the Insular Bureau of the War Department, has made public circulars calling for subscriptions for $7,000,000 Philippine land purchase bonds, the proceeds of which are to be applied to the purchase of the friars' lands. The bonds will be registered in denominations from $1,000 to $10,000. dated February 1, 1904, bearing four per cent interest, payable at the United States treasury in United States gold coin. The bonds will run from ten to thirty years. and be free from all forms of taxation, either in the Philippines or in the United States. Subscriptions will be payable at the New York sub-treasury, where the bonds also will be delivered.

The United States expedition to Abyssinia under Consul General Skinner of Marseilles which arrived at Adis Abeba December 21, has successfully negotiated a treaty with the empire of Ethiopia, opening for the first time friendly commercial relations. Emperor Menelik has also given his formal acceptance of the invitation to participate in the St. Louis Exposition.

As a personal tribute from Emperor Menelik to President Roosevelt, Mr. Skinner has been charged to deliver to the President two lions and a pair of elephant tusks.

Although Secretary Hay has not yet replied to the note of General Reyes, who is representing Colombia in the Panama question, preparations are rapidly going on for the closing of the Colombian Legation at Washington and the departure of Colombia's representatives for home. They entertain very little hope of a satisfactory response by this Government. Already most of the legation files have been packed and arrangements completed for placing them in storage.

W. I. Buchanan, recently appointed as United States minister to the Republic of Panama, has presented his credentials to the Republic.

Foreign.

It is announced in London that the manuscript of Milton's "Paradise Lost" is in the market and will be sold at auction by Sotheby in March next unless previously disposed of at private sale. The Daily Express announces that a New Yorker residing in London has offered $250,000 for the manuscript. The authorities of the British Museum trying to induee the Government to make a grant to purchase it, the museum not having the money to compete with millionarire collectors.

Milton sold "Paradise Lost" to Samuel Simmons, publisher. He received $25 down and a promise of two more payments of $25 each if two editions were sold.

Mr. Bunau-Varilla, minister of Panama to the United States, states that he has notified Sir H. Mortimer Durand, British ambassador to the United States, that Panama is willing to assume a part of the exterior debt of Colombia, in proportion to the population of Panama compared with that of Colombia, as soon as the independence of Panama is recognized by Colombia. The total amount of the exterior debt, with interest added, is about $15,000,000, and Panama has a population about one-fifteenth of that of Colombia, so that Panama will take upon itself the payment of a million dollars, if the conditions are carried out.

The Russian Government, it is stated, has placed a rush order with a South Omaha company for one million pounds of extramess meat for its soldiery, and with a Kansas City firm for one and one-half million pounds. These and other supplies, said to be designed for the Russian War Department, are to be delivered in San Francisco by the 26th of January, there to be placed aboard two Russian vessels to sail from that port.

The Treasury Department has issued an account of revenue in the United Kingdom for the first nine months of the fiscal year of 1903-04. Of an estimated total for the year of $721,550,000. the returns thus far show $155,287,490 paid into the exchequer, show a total net decrease of $18,497,040, which was not unexpected.

No definite action has yet been taken to put into effect the Austro-Russian reform scheme for Macedonia by the Commission which was appointed five or six weeks ago to consider the details and enter into negotiations with the Porte. It is thought that obstructions are being systematically placed in the way by Turkish influences.

Cuba has recognized the new Republic of Panama. Recognition has also been given by England, Italy, and Costa Rica.

Industrial and Commercial.

The Baltic has just been added to the White Star Line. She is the largest vessel ever built, being 1,900 tons larger than her sister ship, the Cedric. She is 725 feet 9 inches over all. 75 feet beam, 49 feet deep. Her tonnage is 24,000 tons, cargo capacity 28,000 tons, displacement at load draft 39,800 tons. The first-class dining-saloon will seat 370 persons and there will be accommodations for nearly three thousand passengers besides a crew of 350. Her engines are quadruple expansion balanced type, having cylinders 33 in, 47½ in., 68½ in., and 98 in., in diameter with a stroke of 5 feet 3 inches. She has eight double ended boilers supplying steam at a pressure of 210 pounds. She will make between 16 and 17 knots. The White Star fleet consists now of about 350,000 tons, represented by 29 steamers. Of these 25 are fitted with twin screws, 21 are 10,000 tons or over. It is reported that a new steamer 755 feet long has been recently ordered at Belfast, Ireland. This will exceed the Baltic by 30 feet in length.

A news despatch from Guthrie, Okla., says that the Pan-American Railway Company, with headquarters at Guthrie and with $250,000,000 capital stock, has been chartered there. The Company proposes to build a line from Port Nelson, on Hudson Bay, British America, via Winnipeg in Manitoba through the States of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma Territory, Indian Territory, and Texas, thence through Mexico, Central America, the republic of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, into the Argentine Republic, with a branch line from Peru through Chile to Valparaiso. The total length is ten thousand miles.

The Canadian Transit Company with a capital of $1,500,000, proposes to enter into the trade of the upper lakes. This company has just made contracts in England for the construction of twelve large steel ships for the grain trade. This will be the largest fleet yet put afloat on the Great Lakes under Canadian ownership. The cause is found in the increase of wheat production in the Canadian Northwest, and the great immigration into Manitoba and the Northwest Provinces.

Now that Canada has completed the improvement of the Welland and St Lawrence Canals so that vessels drawing fourteen feet of water can pass down, agitation is beginning for an eighteen-foot channel. The entering wedge is a proposition for "deepening of the Welland Canal to eighteen feet, so that lake ships of large size can discharge at Kingston and Prescott, from which points grain may be carried in barges and transshipped into ocean vessels at Montreal."

Details of eleven months' commerce of the year 1903, just made public by the United States Department of Commerce and Labor through its bureau of statistics, show an increase in practically all the great groups of exports and imports. Agricultural products. as a whole, show an incrase of $74,000,000; products of the forests, $10,000,000; products of the mines, $8,000,000; manufactures, $5,000,000, and miscellaneous articles, $2,000,000. In the single group, fisheries, is shown a slight decrease of a little more than $1,000,000.

The United States consul general at Constantinople, advises the Department of Commerce that the Pennsylvania Steel Company has been awarded the contract for twenty thousand tons of steel rails, fish plates, and bolts for the Hedjaz Railway. This Company was the lowest bidder among Belgian, German, and other competitors. These rails will lay about six hundred miles of the new railway from Halfa to Mecca.

The official reports of the traffic through Sault Ste. Marie canals during the season of navigation just closed, show that a total of 21,654,898 tons of iron ore passed through the American and Canadian locks. The down-bound shipments of copper footed up 112,877 net tons. The record of the total traffic, both down and up-bound freight, is 34,674,437 tons. A total of 18,606 vessels used the canals this year.

The Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company has closed a contract to equip the Manila Street Railway involving an expenditure of $500,000.

It is understood that orders yet to be filled by the American Locomotive Company are sufficient to keep every plant busy for six months.

General.

A building planned to be erected in lower Broadway, New York City, with five stories below the street level, forty stories from the entrance to the top floor, and surmounted by a sixty-foot tower, will have a total height of 615 feet, making it the tallest building in the world. Its cost, including the site will reach $10,000,000. The land is said to have been secured. and the completion of the building within one year is promised.

The Metropolitan Art Museum of New York has just purchased an old chariot for $50,000. It was unearthed near Rome some time ago, and is 2,600 years old and splendidly preserved.