National.

A bill prepared by Secretary Taft has been passed by the House providing a civil form of government for the Philippines. It provides that all bonds issued by the Government of the United States or the Government of the Philippines shall be exempt from taxation either by the Government of the United States or the Government of the Philippines. Five per cent bonds to the amount of ten million dollars are authorized for public improvements in the Philippines. These bonds are to be approved by the President and Secretary of War, and are to be used to provide for port and harbor works, roads, bridges, provincial and municipal schools, court houses, and penal institutions.

Five per cent municipal bonds also are authorized to carry on municipal improvements, such bonded indebtedness of any one municipality not to exceed ten per cent of the assessed valuation of property in such municipality.

The land measurements, which in the original act were in acres, are changed to the metric system, which prior to that time prevailed in the islands.

The provision for guaranteeing earnings on railroad capital to be invested on the islands is regarded as an important step toward advancing the civil conditions in the islands.

Examinations of candidates for the Cecil Rhodes scholarships from various American colleges occurred in a number of States last week. The results of the examinations are to be sealed and sent to Oxford and the committee's selection must be from the list returned from Oxford. To win the scholarship the successful candidate must possess literary and scholastic attainments: fondness for and success in manly outdoor sports, and qualities of manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, and kindliness, unselfishness, and good fellowship. The winners of the scholarships will go to Oxford University in October of this year.

The first Oxford scholarship to be awarded in America under the terms of the will of the late Cecil Rhodes has been announced by the faculty of the University of New Brunswick at St. John. The recipient is Chester Martin of St. John.

The torpedo-boat flotilla commanded by Lieutenant Chandler, consisting of the torpedo-boat destroyers Decatur, Bainbridge, Barry, Dale, and Chauncey, under convoy of the cruiser Buffalo, reached Cavite, Philippine Islands, on the 15th. This flotilla left Hampton Roads December 12 and has completed a cruise of over fifteen thousand miles. The trip has proved the seaworthiness of this type of vessels, about which much doubt has been entertained.

Foreign.

Since the American Steamship Line began calling at Plymouth, England, to leave passengers and mail, the old rivalry between the Great Western and the London and Southwestern Railroads has been revived, much to the advantage of both passengers and mail. The Great Western last week made a record run between Plymouth and London, 235¾ miles, in four hours and eighteen minutes, including two stops.

The Sublime Porte has entered reasonable objections to the demands of the Austro-Hungary reform scheme that two hundred and sixty commissioned and non-commissioned foreign officers be enrolled in the Macedonian gendarmerie. The matter has been before the ambassadors of the Powers interested and a compromise to twenty-five is probable.

The Hungarian Premier and Minister of the Interior proposes to introduce in the Diet a bill for the establishment of a steamship line from the port of Fiume to New York, to meet the requirements of the immigration law. The negotiations between the Government and the Cunard Steamship Company will be laid before the Diet at the same time.

The British expedition under Colonel Younghusband to Lhassa, the capital of Tibet, has reached Gyangste, which is only forty or fifty miles distant from the capital. The expedition, which is pacific in its nature and has no ulterior designs on Tibet, has met with some armed resistance from the natives.

The French Government has just purchased for the National Gallery of the Luxembourg two pictures by American artists—an Oriental painting by the late Edwin Lord Weeks of Boston, and a blue and white interior, showing the fireplace of the Bradley mansion in Boston, by Walter Gay.

Industrial and Commercial.

In an interview Professor Sir William Ramsay is represented as declaring that radium, instead of being a primeval substance which has been slowly disintegrating since the world began, is merely a temporary phase of matter, an unstable resting point in a series of transmutations, of which nobody knows the beginning, or end, or meaning. Experiments made by himself and Professor Soddy tend to show that it would all disintegrate and vanish eleven hundred and fifty years hence. The rate of disintegration does not depend upon the quantity existent. It would all vanish, whether it measured a cubic inch or a cubic mile, forming in the process other substances, the only one at present known being helium. It is obvious, therefore, that radium must now be in the course of production. If it had been an original deposit it would have disappeared long ago. It was the merest speculation to discuss how it was produced. Nobody knew, but possibly it came from uranium.

According to the present outlook the New York subway may not be completed until fall instead of June, as was hoped, and it is possible no trains can be run until well along in the winter. The construction work of the subway itself and of tracks could be completed by June, it is thought, but the power house at Fifty-ninth Street with its seven huge generators is behind. As only two of these generators have been put in place, and it takes six weeks to put together each set of the generating machinery, and five of these at least are needed for a beginning, it will be mid-August at the earliest before the machinery necessary to give power for the train service in the subway will be ready.

Charles Baskerville, professor of chemistry and director of the laboratory in the University of North Carolina, announced last week before the Chemists' Club in New York City, his discovery that thorium, hitherto known as one of the seventy primary elements, is a compound substance, Dr. Baskerville has resolved thorium into two new elements, He has named one of these Carolinium, after the State; the other Berzelium, in honor of the Swedish chemist who, nearly a hundred years ago, discovered thorium. He has the good fortune to be the first American chemist to discover a chemical element. Dr. Baskerville's discovery is the result of ten years of research.

A compilation of new cotton mill enterprises reported throughout the South during the first three months of 1904 shows that the total is not equal to the record for the first quarter of 1903 by about 88,000 spindles, but is ahead of the last three months of that year. About 150,000 spindles, representing an investment of $3,000,000, are to go into established plants, while 50,000 spindles are for six new mills, four of which are promoted by experienced manufacturers. South Carolina leads in spindle additions, its total being 124,656, or ever 60 per cent of the aggregate for the quarter.

Articles of incorporation have been filed with the Secretary of State for the National Farmers' Exchange, with South Dakota headquarters at Pierre and offices in Chicago, and a capital of fifty million dollars. This corporation has for its purpose cooperation in the handling of all products of the farms, or in other words, a "farmers' trust." The incorporators are Western men.

General.

The old locomotives of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and several other antiques of the older roads of this country, which were donated at the close of the World's Fair to the Field Columbian Museum, are to be put on exhibition at St. Louis. The Baltimore and Ohio exhibit will include thirty-eight fullsized working reproductions of locomotives covering a period from the earliest to 1848, and also nine original locomotives, comprising types in use from 1832 to 1876. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad will send the Pioneer, the first locomotive to be used west of Chicago. The Mississippi, the first locomotive to be used in the Gulf States, will be contributed by the Illinois Central Railroad.

An inmate of the poorhouse at Nantes, France, an old man, while digging in the garden recently, unearthed an antique vase decorated with paintings and containing two thousand gold pieces of the Gallo-Roman period. The vase will be sent to the Louvre in Paris, and the coin, estimated to be worth to-day forty thousand dollars, will be divided among the finder and his fellow paupers.

The authorities of Harvard University have decided to go ahead at once with the construction of Emerson Hall, the new building for the Department of Philosophy. It was first intended to break ground last May for the building at the time of the celebration of Emerson's birthday, but it was found impracticable.

John S. Sargent has been chosen to paint the portrait of President Eliot of Harvard, presented to him on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. The portrait will be lifesize, and when completed will be placed in the living room of the Harvard Union.

Since immigration to the United States was first recorded officially, twenty-two million people have come to the United States. Five millions have come from Germany and four millions from Ireland.