ITEMS OF INTEREST November 14, 1908 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Postmaster General Meyer, in arguing for the establishment of postal savings banks, notes the fact that fourteen States of the Union have savings bank deposits of over three and a half billions of dollars, or 98.4 per cent, while the remaining thirty-two States have a trifle over seventy million dollars, or 1.6 percent. This condition, he avers, does not give adequate facilities to many people for depositing money in banks and furnishes a convincing reason for affording such facilities through a Government postal savings system. There are in the United States sixty-one thousand post-offices, of which forty thousand already do a money order business and could become depositories for savings.

President Roosevelt is expected to start on his trip to Africa within a fortnight after the inauguration of his successor in office, and will probably be accompanied by his son Kermit, a professor from the Smithsonian Institute, and an officer of the navy. He will reach Mombassa in East Africa in April and spent six months between that point and the province of Uganda, finally reaching Lake Victoria Nyanza, whence his objective point is Entebbe in Central Africa. From there he journeys by boat and on foot to Khartoum, about there thousand miles.

Cordial messages expressing gratification over the visit of the American fleet to Amoy, China, and the remission of the Boxer indemnity by the United States, have been received at the State Department. Both messages, one signed by forty-one public officials, directors, and officers of private enterprises representing twenty provinces, and the other by the former governor of Kiangsu and various prominent citizens of Hangchow, expressed appreciation of the friendly relations existing between the United States and China.

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