Political Events.

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, the "father of Congress," delivered what is said to have been the greatest speech of his life in the United States Senate, April 17, on the Philippine question. Mr. Hoar has opposed the polity of his party in dealing with the Filipinos at every stage of its development, and in his great speech he embodied his views fully, supporting them by an appeal to the official reports and the history of the country. The speech made a profound impression on the senators and other hearers, because of its strength and of the high character of the great man who spoke.

The Washington press dispatches state that the special sub-committee on trusts of the House judiciary committee has decided upon two measures destroying destroying trusts. One is a constitutional amendment giving Congress full power to deal with trusts, and the other is a new anti-trust law prohibiting the interstate traffic in trust-made goods, prohibiting the use of the mails to concerns and their officials proved to be trusts, and other prohibitive limitations.

Mrs. Dominis, otherwise known as Liliuokalani, the ex-queen of Hawaii, will sail from San Francisco May 15 for her home in Honolulu. It is said that she is bitterly disappointed by the failure of her pension claim, and says she will never again set foot in the country which has treated her so unjustly. She is said to have an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.

Owing to the failure of the Sultan of Turkey to pay claims amounting to about ninety thousands dollars arising out of outrages suffered by American missionaries, the United States minister to Turkey has returned to New York and has offered his resignation to the State Department. Minister Straus declares that the Sultan promised him on three occasions to pay the claims.

The Brooklyn Democratic Club gave a Jefferson dinner on April 18, which was intended to be an anti-Bryan affair. ExPresident Cleveland sent a letter which was read, and ex-Governor James E. Campbell of Ohio delivered a speech, both of which were appeals to the Democrats to stick to conservative policies.

The grand jury of Franklin County, Kentucky, has found an indictment against William S. Taylor, the Republican acting governor, as an accessory before the act to the murder of his rival, William Goebel. Minor Republican state officers were also indicted.

The famous Calaveras sequoia grove in California which was bought a few weeks ago by a Duluth Iumberman for $100,000 is now wanted for a national park by the government, and the owner demands $250,000.

The United States Supreme Court has decided that the stamp tax on express bills of lading must be paid for by the patron and not by the carrier, reversing the decision of the Supreme Court of Michigan.

Charles H. Allen, who was appointed governor of Porto Rico by President McKinley, has definitely accepted the appointment and the Senate has confirmed it.

Secretary Hay has notified Spain that the United States cannot accede to its claim on Sibutu Island and Cagayan Sulu of the Philippine Archipelago.

Foreign News.

On April 21, British reports from the seat of war indicated that Lord Roberts had succeeded in getting his immense army into condition to advance in force, and advices from the same source show that the Boers were still besieging Wepener in great force and seemed to be prepared to stand their ground.

The British government has furnished the press with the text of Lord Robert's reports criticising Lord Buller, General Warren, and other officers for their part in the Spion Kop affair.

Canadian manufacturers and traders are trying to secure a government appropriation to hold an industrial and art exposition at Toronto at the time of the Buffalo exposition.

The butchers' monopoly in Havana, by which certain favored men were permitted to fix the price of meat to suit themselves, has been abolished.

Russia's Asiatic possessions are three times the size of England's, but have only 23,000,000 inhabitants as against 297,000,000 subjects of England.

A deputation of Boers supposed to be enroute to the United States to ask the President to aid them in obtaining peace, arrived in Holland April 16.

The University of Edinburgh has conferred upon Joseph H. Choate, the United States ambassador to Great Britain, the degree of LL.D.

Japanese immigrants have been pouring into British Columbia recently by thousands.

Industry and Commerce.

The gross earning of the Pennsylvania railroad and its connecting lines in 1899 were $152,169,106; operating expenses, $106,506,988; net earnings, $45,662,118. Passengers carried, 76,643,548. A dividend of 5 per cent was declared on the capital stock of $129,000,000 amounting to $6,465,000.

Louis Dreyfus, in an experiment recently made in Thomas A. Edison's laboratory to show the advantage of a new process of combustion, produced a heat of 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit, which in less than ten seconds completely melted a steel bar six inches long and half an inch in diameter.

Tennessee had become the leading phosphate producer of America. There are 248 valuable mines in the state, and over twentyone thousand men are employed in the business.

It is estimated that three hundred thousand men will be withdrawn from the various industries of Great Britain before there is any decrease in the demand for soldiers.

Press dispatches state that the Vanderbilts have acquired control of the Reading railroad, together with its extensive coal mines.

It is said that nearly all the towns in Siberia are having are lights for street use and incandescent lights for the houses.

It is estimated that the total mineral production of the United States this year will reach a value of a least $1,000,000,000.

Farmers in North Carolina are making tests of Japan rice with a view to raising it.

General News.

Andrew Carnegie has promised the trustees of the Carnegie Library and Institute of Pittsburg to become responsible for $3,000,000, the amount estimated as necessary for the proposed extension and enlargement of the already fine building at the entrance of Schenley Park. The new building will be nearly six times as large as the present one. It will be 500x700 feet in size, and cover between six and seven acres of ground.

Between 1862 and 1873 George Peabody gave $2,500,000 to the trustees of the Peabody Donation Fund, which builds model tenements for London workmen. Since that time there has been added to the fund from the rents and interest $3,956,000, making the whole $6,456,000. The net gain for 1899 was $175,920. The number of rooms provided for workmen is 11,367, divided into 5,121 separate dwellings, and occupied by 19,157 persons.

A dispatch from Oaxaca, Mexico, says that another ancient city, covering several hundred acres, has been discovered near the Indian village of Teocaltiche in that State. The ruins are almost completely covered with earth, but the excavations so far made show that the discovery is of great archæological importance.

First University, the great school for the higher education of the colored youth, has kept a record of its graduates, and nineteen twentieths are in professional work, over two hundred being teachers. It is stated that ten thousand colored pupils are taught each year by those who received their education at Fisk.

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, superintendent of the Chicago public schools, who was lately offered the position of chancellor of the University of Nebraska, has decided to accept the place. He has presented his resignation as superintendent of schools to take effect May 1.

New York firms have bought ten thousand Mauser rifles and five million rounds of Mauser ammunition from the United States government for shipment to Holland and Belgium. These rifles are a part of the armament captured in the Spanish war.

The 125th anniversary of the first armed resistence to British aggression by the minute men of Concord and Lexington and neighboring Massachusetts farms and villages, was appropriately celebrated on April 19 at both Concord and Lexington.

An African kopje is described as the stump of a hill—what is left of it after ages of denudation. It is almost invariably covered with a breastwork of boulders, which furnish a natural defence.

It is said that the Princess of Wales has given orders that nothing need be submitted for her inspection, or that of her daughters, in which birds are used as trimming.

While dredging in the river at Savannah, Ga., recently, the wreck of an old-type English man-of-war was found and several old style cannon have been raised from it.

The supervisor of the public school census of Chicago estimates that his work this year will show that the city's population is above two million.

The week of August 11 to August 18 has been fixed upon as the Old Home Week for 1900 in New Hampshire.