The Advocate of Peace in giving thirty reasons why our navy should not be increased says: "Because our three foreign wars since 1781, which lasted only six years, cost in life, all told, in battle, nothing comparable with our reckless slaughter by accidents every year in time of peace.
Paper manufacturers and owners of timber lands conferred recently with Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, with a view to the adoption of practical forestry methods.
The United States, before giving its consent to the transfer of the sovereignty of the Congo Free State to Belgium, asks information on the following principal demands : A specific assurance from Belgium that she will respect the Brussels act of 1890, of which the United States is a full signatory, and especially Article 2, providing for the humane treatment of the natives ; the abolition of the labor tax; the restoration to the natives formerly held by them according to native communal customs ; the institution of the freedom of trade guaranteed by the treaty of 1891 between the United States and the Congo; an agreement to submit to arbitration economic and commercial questions which shall prove especially difficult of settlement otherwise.
After the Pennsylvania Railroad has advanced farther with its terminal station and other improvements in New York city, work will be started on a bridge from Port Moreys, a suburb of New York, to Queens County, Long Island.
A concerted action is to be made by sportsmen in all sections of the country and the Audubon Societies, with a view to ascertain the amount of game birds and animals taken each year.
The commission on public service corporations appointed by the Connecticut General Assembly of 1907 reports that it would be desirable to vest in a permanent public utilities commission these powers and duties: To grant franchises to public service corporations; to supervise the condemnation of land and construction of fixtures by these corporations in so far as the same affects the public safety or interest; to supervise the capitalization of these corporations; to ascertain the facts relating to the financial condition of these corporations; the physical condition of their plants and equipments, and the cause of accidents resulting from their operation; to supervise their operation in so far as the same substantially affects the public safety; to fix the rates chargeable when existing rates are unreasonable.
The United States Supreme Court has decided that the laws of New York state requiring the Consolidated Gas Company of New York city to furnish gas at eighty cents per thousand feet are legal.
The decree of the Circuit Court in the Government's suit against the American Tobacco Company and others declares the tobacco trust a monopoly engaged in an illegal combination, and restrains these holding companies from engaging in foreign and interstate commerce until competition between them is restored.
The Massachusetts commission on fisheries and game has announced the purchase of six hundred acres of land on Martha's Vineyard, which it is proposed to devote to the propagation of the pinnated grouse, or heath hen.
According to a decision by the Commissioner of Patents, any label bearing the inscription, "Guaranteed under the pure food and drug acts, June 30, 1906," where such inscription is intended to imply that the Government is responsible for the purity of the goods, will be refused registration.
