National.

The Grand Trunk Railroad put into effect on Jan. I a pension system claimed to be the most comprehensive and one of the most generous in the country, embracing every employe of the railroad in the United States and Canada. To support the plan the company has appropriated two hundred thousand dollars, the interest of which each year will be turned over to carry out the terms of the plan. A compulsory retiring age is fixed at sixty-five, while any employe who has served the company for fifteen years or more will be entitled to a pension on a graduated scale, according to the number of years served. The rate of pension has been fixed at one per cent of the average yearly salaray for the highest ten consecutive years of service; the one per cent being multiplied by the number of years served. A minimum pension has been fixed at two hundred dollars, while there is no maximum.

A sale of the properties of the North Chicago Street Railroad Company, the West Chicago Street Railroad Company, and the Chicago Union Traction Company, under a decree of foreclosure, has been ordered for Jan. 25, 1908, by Judge Peter S. Grosscup, sitting in the United States Circuit Court. It is taken for granted that the Railways Company will be the only bidder for the property and means that, following the acceptance on Feb. I of the ordinance by which the Chicago Railways Company will come into possession of the traction properties affected by the decree, the Railways Company will immediately begin rehabilitation of the lines at a cost of twelve million dollars and within three years must have rebuilt at least ninety miles of single track and have put in operation at least twelve hundred new cars.

One of the greatest undertakings in river improvements was brought to completion last week, when the jetties at the mouth of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River were finished. These jetties will give the South one of the deepest harbors in the world by opening to the largest steamships afloat the deep waters of the lower Mississippi River. The harbor thus made accessible has navigable water conection with at least a dozen States bordering the Mississippi and its tributaries—the Ohio, the Missouri, the Arkansas, and the Red Rivers. About six million dollars is being spent on this improvement by the United States Government.

Carnegie Institute has just received two million dollars more from its founder. In the original deed of gift of ten million dollars Mr. Carnegie provided that the income was to be expended in founding in Washington an institution to co-operate with those now or hereafter established, and in the broadest and most liberal manner encourage investigation, research, and discovery, show the application of knowledge of the improvement of mankind, provide such buildings, laboratories, books, and apparatus as may be needed, and afford instruction of an advanced character to students properly qualified to profit by it.

The first bill to be considered by the House Committee on Appropriations will be a deficiency bill carrying an item of about eight million dollars, to enable the Isthmian Canal Commission to continue the work on the Panama Canal without interruption until June 30 next. The general bill for the current year gave the Commission about twenty-eight million dollars, but the work has progressed so rapidly that additional funds must be provided.

President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University, in a late address to the students of Occidental College, branded American football as unethical, unchristian, and unsportsmanlike, and indorsed Rugby football as the only game for American colleges.

Within the past year half a million dollars has been spent on new schoolhouses in Georgia and thirty thousand pupils were added to the enrollment.

International.

The Shah of Persia has agreed to accept the demands made upon him by the constitutional leaders. This declaration provides that certain intriguing priests be banished and that persons responsible for the recent disorders be punished; that two hundred infantrymen be placed as a permanent guard before the Parliament buildings; further that all troops, including the Cossack brigade, which hitherto has been an independent command, be placed under the Ministry of War, and that the Russian officers of the Cossack brigade shall only instruct the men, not command them, as they have hitherto done.

The Government Commission of Engineers, making explorations and surverys of mountainous tracts of land in remote parts of Mexico, say that they have discovered a number of towns and villages, the existence of which was not known before to the government and which are not upon the official maps and records. Some of these towns are of considerable size, their population ranging from one thousand to five thousand people. They are situated in valleys in the deep recesses of the Sierra Madre and have little communication with the outside world.

The Italian government announces that the excavation of the buried city of Herculaneum will be begun at once. The work will be carried out by the Italian government with Italian funds. The artistic treasures which should be unearthed at Herculaneum are expected to prove far richer than those already discovered in the buried city of Pompeii.

Because of the prolonged drought the acreage of wheat in the Punjab. India, has shrunk from nine million to five million acres.

Industrial and Commercial.

A permit has been granted for the new La Salle Hotel to be erected at La Salle and Madison Streets, Chicago. With the furnishings the hotel will represent an investment of approximately $3,500,000, and with the land the total will run up to six million dollars. It is said that the work of construction will be begun some time between March 1 and May 1, and fifteen months will be required to complete it. The building will be twenty-two stories high, with two basements, and it is said will be the largest hotel building in the world. It will contain 1,172 rooms.

The large holdings of the New Brunswick forest lands by American pulp and paper manufacturers have been increased by the purchase of a tract of five hundred and fifty square miles by the International Paper Company of Bangor, Me. The land lies in the Dalhousie district on the Restigouche River and contains about three hundred and fifty thousand acres of heavily wooded spruce lands. The tract is what is known as permit or government license in land, being secured by the company from the Canadian government on a lease for a term of years.

The Department of Agriculture issued a report Dec. 20, giving final estimates of winter wheat acreage to be 28,132,000; production, 409,442,000 bushels; spring wheat acreage, 17,079,000, production, 224,645,000; corn acreage, 99,931,000; production, 2,592,320,000; oats acreage, 31,837,000; production, 754,443,000.

Estimates indicate that the product of the beet-sugar factories of Michigan will have a total value of $10,000,000, compared with $8,000,000 last year. Between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000 will go to the farmers. The crop harvested this year was raised on ten thousand acres.

The total of the dividends in 1907 of eighteen corporations in New Bedford, Mass., manufacturing cotton goods, is $2,578,250, on a capital of $18,770,000, an average of 13.73 per cent. Last year the average rate was 8.92 per cent, in 1905 it was 6.6, and in 1904, 5.2.

The total amount of cotton of this year's growth in the United States, ginned up to Dec. 13 last, was 9,281,077 bales, as compared with 11,112,789 bales for the same period last year. The total crop for 1906 was 12,983,201, and for 1905, 10,495,105.

There are now eighty-eight cotton warehouses in Arkansas, against sixteen a year ago, controlled by the Farmers' Union. The Arkansas branch of the Union has a membership of about seventy-six thousand.

The American Can Company of Pittsburg has closed an order with the California Fruit Canners' Association for three hundred million tin cans to be delivered in a period covering five years.

The Lake Shore Railroad has just finished buying about twenty-five acres of land at Elkhart, Ind., to be used as the site for a new locomotive shop.

It is announced that the Boston and Maine Railroad will establish a two-million-dollar repair shop at Somerville, just outside of Boston.

General.

The postal savings bank is in operation in New Zealand where there are 540 post-offices open for the transaction of savings bank business, with 298,746 accounts and a total deposit of $48,766,325. The rate of interest paid on deposits is three and onehalf per cent up to $1,500, three per cent from $1,500 to $3,000, and no interest above $3,000. One in three of the people of New Zealand have a savings bank account.

British India has the swiftest river in the world. The Sutlej has a descent of twelve thousand feet in one hundred and fifty miles.