National.

Arrangements are being made by the Postoffice Department and Weather Bureau whereby the farmers living on the free rural delivery routes can have the benefits of the Weather Bureau's forecasts. The mail carts will be equipped with signals which can be read at a considerable distance from the highways.

At a recent banquet Governor Taft said that in order properly to develop the Philippines satisfactory tariff legislation must be passed at the next session of Congress. Laws providing for the granting of franchises and mining rights, and also for the incorporation of American banks, are greatly needed.

In a general order recently issued by General Miles, the purpose of which is to improve the condition of the army, patriotism, discipline, physical development, self-respect, self-reliance, and resourcefulness are especially mentioned as being among the essential things of a good soldier.

The second annual reunion of the National Society of the Army of the Philippines was held at Salt Lake City, Utah, August 13–15. The next meeting will be held at Council Bluffs, Ia., and it is thought the society will unite with the Philippine Islands Veterans' Association.

Every one of the five hundred World's Fair emblems which have been submitted to the St. Louis committee has been declared unavailable. "Barren in conception and not artistic enough in execution," is the way the judges describe the designs offered.

Peter Cuneo of Upper Sandusky, O., an old neighbor and friend of President McKinley, has been appointed United States consul at Turin, Italy. Mr. Cuneo was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1837 and came to this country when a lad of twelve.

The United States has been invited to send delegates to the International Congress of Historical Science which will be held in Rome in the spring of 1902. The congress will include all subjects of a historical character.

A complete and modern printing plant, costing about one hundred thousand dollars, will shortly be sent from this country to Manila, in which nearly all the Government printing needed in the Philippines will be done.

Civil Governor Taft will immediately reduce the police force of Manila by one-half. At present there are thirteen hundred policemen in the city whose population numbers only two hundred and fifty thousand.

Wednesday, September 4, will be President's Day at the Pan-American Exposition. It is expected that President McKinley, the Cabinet, the United States Supreme Court, and the diplomatic corps will be present.

The Olympia, Admiral Dewey's flagship at Manila, may be one of the squadron which will probably be sent to represent the United States at the exercises in honor of the coronation of King Edward.

Rear Admiral Mortimer L. Johnson, U.S.N., commandant of the Port Royal naval station, will relieve Admiral Sampson at the Boston Navy Yard November 1.

Engineers' estimates show a probable expenditure of $44,348,404 for river and harbor improvements during the year ending June 30, 1903.

Foreign.

The draft of the final protocol of the agreement between China and the Powers has been agreed upon. It provides for a tariff of five per cent ad valorem to take effect two months after the signing of the final protocol. The Chinese free list will include rice, foreign cereals and flour, gold and silver bullion and coin. The inclusion of flour on the free list is of much importance to Pacific coast shippers.

An Irish company proposes to build docks at Berehaven, on the west coast of Ireland, for a service of steamers, probably with turbine engines, which will cross the ocean in four days and a half. A railway will be built across the south of Ireland to connect with boats crossing the Irish Channel to London by the Southwestern railway.

China will erect a legation building at Washington. It is proposed to make the new legation one of the most palatial and ornate residences of any diplomatic corps represented in Washington. The chief artistic attraction will be the interior decoration, which will be characteristic of the best taste of the Celestial decorators.

Sir Thomas Lipton and his party sailed from Queenstown for New York, August 15, on the White Star line steamer Teutonic. Sir Thomas feels confident that he will be able to lift the cup. Shamrock II. is seventeen munutes faster than the old challenger was two years ago.

France is said to be seriously considering the question of digging a canal from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean. This gigantic undertaking is roughly estimated to cost from two to five hundred million dollars.

It is reported that General Kitchener will return to England about September 15. He will be succeeded in military command by General Lyttleton, who is now on his way to the Cape.

The government of Jamaica will further the establishment of several large sugar factories on the island by guaranteeing the interest on the investment for a number of years.

By a vote of 188 to 60 the House of Commons rejected an amendment to the king's title whereby the words "defender of the faith" should be omitted.

Industrial and Commercial.

According to recent plans of J. Pierpont Morgan, several million dollars worth of stock of the United States Steel Corporation have been set aside for purchase, at inside figures, by the 165,000 men employed by the companies that make up the great steel combination. This arrangement will form a copartnership between the shareholders and employees. The plan is nothing more than the higher development of the scheme that has prevailed in the Carnegie plants since 1892, where it has proved successful.

The National Transportation Company with a capital of two and a half million dollars, has been organized for the purpose of carrying freight over the Great Lakes. Contracts for a fleet of vessels having a capacity of twenty-seven thousand tons has been let to the American Shipping Company. Chicago, Duluth, Buffalo, and intermediate points will be the ports visited.

The total production of petroleum in the United States in 1900 was 63,362,704 barrels, valued at $75,752,691. Ohio produced 22,362,730 barrels; West Virginia, 16,195,675 barrels; Pennsylvania, 13,258,202 barrels; Indiana, 4,874,382 barrels; California, 4,099,484 barrels; New York, 1,300,025 barrels, and Texas, 836,039 barrels.

South Chicago's two lodges of steel workers have been expelled from the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers because of their refusal to strike in compliance with President Shaffer's order. The two lodges will continue a local organization of their own.

General.

About a year ago there was invented an electric light buoy, the power for which was generated by the motion of the waves. No practical use of the invention has been made until recently, when one of the buoys was moored in the North Sea off Bunsum, in Holstein. There are very dangerous sands at that place, and the tests that have been given the automatic light have proven so satisfactory that it has been determined to place them along the entire coast. Even a slight motion of the waves generates sufficient electricity for illumination, and to regulate the clockwork in the interior of the apparatus, which shows and extin guishes the light at intervals of thirty seconds.

A successful test of the Marconi wireless telegraph system was made on August 16. Messages were sent from the Cunard line steamship, Lucania, seventy-two miles east of Nantucket. The messages were received by lightship and transmitted to Siasconset where they were telephoned to Nantucket.

At the recent sale of town lots at Lawton, Oklahoma, town lots sold as high as $140 a front foot. It is estimated that the sale of lots will exceed five hundred thousand dollars. Four banks have been established in the town.

The Prince Edward of York diamond has been purchased by a New York firm for one hundred thousand dollars. The stone was found in South Africa in 1894 and weighs sixty and one-fourth carats.

The United States has been invited by Germany to co-operate in weather and magnetic observations south of parallel 30 south latitude, during the south pole expedition she is about to undertake.

The nineteenth national convention of the Woman's Relief Corps will be held in Cleveland, O., next month at the same time as the thirty-fifth national encampment of the Grand Army.

An engine on the Great Northern Railway, England, built in 1870, has just completed four million miles. It is believed that this breaks the English record.

Two Denver men recently climbed Pike's Peak in an automobile. This was the first time any one ever reached the summit in a horseless carriage.

Vice-President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the new eighty-five thousand dollar Y.M.C.A. building at Colorado Springs, August 10.

According to recent census returns, the population of France is 38,641,333, an increase of 412,364 during the last five years.

Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht, Shamrock II., arrived at Sandy Hook, N. Y., August 11.