In a recent issue of the Anglo-Norwegian Trade Journal, a writer states that no country in the world has, in proportion to its population, so large a mercantile fleet as Norway. There is in this country an average of one register ton for each inhabitant, whereas in Great Britain, the next highest of the seafaring nations, there is in this respect considerably less than half a ton for each unit of the population. The mercantile fleet of Norway thus constitutes a much greater portion of the nation's assets than is the case in any other country. It is not the necessities of trade that have been the primary cause of the creation of this fleet; it is really the inherent love of the sea, in association with excellent opportunities of exercising it, that has created the Norwegian seaman, and he in turn may be said to have originally created the Norwegian mercantile fleet, which grew in excess of the needs of the trade of the country and became a kind of public carrier on the sea.

All of the twenty-seven defendants, including the mayor of the city, in the Terre Haute elections fraud case, have been found guilty by a jury. The Federal government placed its claim to jurisdiction in the fact that a United States senator and a member of Congress were being voted for in the election. The indictment, which is in four counts, charges conspiracy to injure persons in their civic rights; conspiracy to defraud the United States by corrupting the election and misuse of the mails. The federal grand jury began its investigation about two weeks after the election of Nov. 3, 1914, and returned the indictment Dec. 24, naming one hundred and twenty-six men. All but ten of those indicted were arrested, and eighty-nine of them pleaded guilty. The trial of the accused began March 8, and the taking of testimony opened two days later.

Norwood, Mass., went under the town manager form of government on April 1, and is the first municipality in the East to adopt this new type of control of public affairs. The town manager is responsible to the selectmen. The office carries a salary of three thousand dollars. The manager is expected to conduct the affairs of the town as though it were a corporation, the selectmen serving as directors. All department heads, except those of the school and police departments, are subject to removal by the manager. He will purchase the town supplies and fix salaries of the officials under him. The town charter has been amended so that he is free to judge workers on their efficiency merits alone. This charter was adopted by the town Oct. 6, 1914, culminating a movement that had been under consideration for five years.

Despite the fact that the Dominion of New Zealand has sufficient land under cultivation to grow more wheat than is required for local consumption, a serious lack of bread became imminent in December, 1914, when a wheat shortage was discovered. The prime minister immediately cabled to Australia and Canada for shipments of wheat. The situation was saved by the arrival of these purchases. It is generally understood that the shortage is due to the action of individuals in holding back their supplies, hoping thereby to secure higher prices, but the promptitude of the government in importing wheat from other countries is calculated to make it unprofitable for speculators and monopolists to hold their stocks.

The average time of transit for steamships from United States Pacific ports to England is about one half what it was before the opening of the Panama canal. Grain ships arriving at British ports from San Francisco and Portland via Panama average forty-eight days. Last season, it is stated, most of the export grain from the Pacific coast was carried in sailing ships whose voyages averaged one hundred and thirty-six days. Of twenty-two cargoes, the shortest time of transit was one hundred and two days, and the longest one hundred and seventy-one days. The average time for steamships was ninety-four days.

It is expected that the crop of winter wheat, planted last fall on the greatest acreage in the country's history, will be six hundred and nineteen million bushels. This is the estimate by the United States department of agriculture, based on the condition of the growing crop on April 1, and it may be increased or decreased according to the changes in condition from that date to the time of harvest. The estimate of six hundred and nineteen million bushels compares with a final estimate of six hundred and eighty-four million nine hundred and ninety thousand last year.

American manufacturers of match-wood may find a market for their product in Brazil, if a sample shipment now being arranged by the United States forest service proves suitable to the Brazilian match manufacturers, whose ordinary supply of Russian aspen has been cut off by the European war. The Brazilian match factories have been using annually about seven million feet of Russian aspen. On the recommendation of American match-woods, a request has been made to the forest service for samples of western white pine, sugar pine, cottonwood and basswood.

There is a bill before the ways and means committee of the Massachusetts legislature appropriating a small sum of money for the further investigation and study of the waterways and undeveloped water powers of Massachusetts. Massachusetts holds second place in New England as regards water-power; she leads a large number of the states of the Union in this respect; but she is lagging behind most others in providing for public conservation, utilization, and equalization of her many streams and ponds.

The United States Supreme Court in the case of the Pennsylvania Railroad against the Puritan Coal Mining Company, decides that shippers are safe in the right to sue for damages, either in the state or federal courts, in the case of discrimination or failure for any reason, in the furnishing of cars, inasmuch as the amendment of the interstate commerce act as to car supply was drawn to secure new rights to shippers and to protect them in all former rights under the common law or the statutes.

Disagreeing with the Senate, the House of Representatives of Connecticut, by practically a unanimous vote, has adopted a bill which would permit a landowner, or his agent, to shoot deer with a shotgun on his own land at any time in the year. The Senate had rejected the bill. Members of the House declare that deer are a nuisance. A conference between the Senate and the House on the bill will seek to devise means to rid the state of hundreds of the animals.

Boston is experimenting on a few of its streets with a new material, composed of woodpulp powder and pulverized stone, which is designed to take the place of oil and of water in keeping down the street dust. The street is first wet down by a watering-cart and then covered with the powdered material. This is followed by a second watering, and the result is a smooth, clean, firm surface that has thus far given satisfaction.

A proposed constitutional amendment, giving women the right of suffrage in Connecticut, was rejected by the House of Representatives, 124 to 106. The amendment had been adversely reported, and the vote was preceded by three hours of debate. Had the amendment been adopted it would have come up before the next legislature for ratification. This action ends the movement for equal suffrage, so far as the present General Assembly is concerned.

According to the annual statement issued by the mines department, 1914 was a record year for mineral productivity in New South Wales, the production for the year, valued at £12,095,084, being the highest in the history of the state. The aggregate value of the minerals produced now exceeds £240,000,000, in which amount coal is represented by about £75,000,000, silver and lead by £67,000,000, and gold stands for £60,000,000.

Government estimates recently completed show that there are six million tons of potash deposits at Searles lake, California, equivalent to a ten years' supply for the United States. A recent statement placed these estimated deposits at only six hundred thousand, but the correct figure is six million tons, it is said.

The Association of Eastern College Newspapers held its third annual convention last week at the Pulitzer school of journalism, Columbia University, New York city. The association now comprises twenty-one daily, biweekly, and weekly college newspapers.

Small exhibition farms will be established in the Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas parks of Chicago this spring, to show the public what can be raised and how to do it. Park gardeners will have supervision of the lots, which are one hundred feet square.

In spite of the density of population being less than one fourth, Argentina already contains one half as many head of cattle as the United States.

The population of the United States April 1, 1915, was estimated as one hundred million.