National.

President Roosevelt did not wait for special authority from Congress before he sent relief to the sufferers of Martinique and St. Vincent. He instructed the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury to "go to the furthest limits of executive discretion in the work of relief and rescue." The President requested Congress to appropriate $500,000 for the relief of the sufferers. Congress promptly responded by appropriating $200,000 for that purpose with the understanding that the other $300,000 would be given later if it seemed necessary.

It is probable that the first minister of the United States to Cuba will be H. G. Squiers, now secretary of the United States legation at Pekin. Mr. Squiers was in Pekin during the siege and gave valuable assistance in the settlement of the delicate diplomatic questions arising from the Boxer troubles in China. The President has recommended to Congress that the salary of the minister to Cuba be $12,000 annually.

In the presence of a large audience President Roosevelt on May 14, laid the corner-stone of the Mckinley Memorial Ohio College of Government of the American University. The building will be devoted to such studies as diplomacy, municipal government, arbitration, civics, and international law. Addresses were made by Senators Dolliver and Hanna, President Roosevelt and others.

Discussion as to the merits of the Panama and Nicaraguan canal routes has been revived by the recent disaster at Martinique. Senator Hanna is preparing some interesting data now coming to hand concerning the volcanic conditions on the two routes. It is acknowledged that the dangers of this sort are much less at Panama, and the shorter distance greatly diminishes the risk.

May 13, President Roosevelt appointed a committee to receive funds for the relief of the sufferers from the recent catastrophes in Martinique and St. Vincent. He also directed all postmasters throughout the country and requested presidents of all National banks to receive contributions and forward the same to Hon. Cornelius N. Bliss at New York City.

Dr. Jabez L. M. Curry, special representative of the United States to the coronation of King Alfonso of Spain, was placed on practically the same footing as foreign princes of the blood, and was treated with greater honor than the other extraordinary envoys, with the exception of the envoy of France.

A few years ago we had our first "billiondollar Congress," which included two sessions. Unless an early adjournment of Congress is reached the appropriations of this session will amount to nearly one billion dollars.

William W. Thomas, the United States minister to Norway and Sweden, is home for a short vacation. Mr. Thomas has been in the diplomatic service forty years, and has filled his present office three terms.

The House of Representatives passed the bill admitting as states the territories Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It is quite generally conceded that the bill will not pass the Senate.

Eugene F. Ware, the new Commissioner of Pensions, assumed charge of the Pension Office May 13.

Foreign.

The official ceremonies in honor of the majority of King Alfonso of Spain opened at Madrid, May 15, 1902. Free dinners were given to three thousand poor persons and the charity will be repeated daily until May 24. Money was distributed to the poor, and small sums were deposited in savings banks in the names of all children born May 17, the day on which the king took the oath. Altogether gifts amounting to about forty thousand dollars were distributed.

President Roosevelt sent the following letter to the King:—

"Great and Good Friend: In the name of, and in behalf of, the government and the people of the United States, I desire to present their sincere felicitations on the occasion of your majesty's majority, and to assure you of their friendship and good wishes for the welfare of your majesty and your majesty's people. I trust your life will be long and happy, and that your reign will live in the affections of your people and bless them with peace, prosperity, and happiness, and I pray God to have you in His safe and holy keeping. Your good friend,
(Signed) "Roosevelt."

In view of the fact that American firms are preparing to make heavy shipments to South Africa immediately after peace has been declared, Mr. Chamberlain has authorized the dispatch of a commission of experts in engineering, textiles, etc., to traverse the entire country and report immediately on the requirements and openings for British trade.

Emperor William of Germany has offered to present a bronze statue of Frederick the Great to the United States to commemorate the recent visit of Prince Henry. It is probable the statue will be erected near the new war college to be established in Washington on the arsenal grounds.

The president of the Canadian Pacific Railway has stated that when the proper time arrives the road is prepared to start a transatlantic fast line, with three twenty-two knot steamers costing $10,000,000, to fight the Morgan combination.

President Loubet of France has sent, by the Count and Countess de Rochambeau, the table centre-piece of Sevres porcelain which won the prize at the Exposition in 1900, to Mrs. Roosevelt, and a Sevres tea service to Miss Roosevelt.

The Chinese minister at Washington, Wu Ting Fang, will probably soon be recalled to China, as he has been appointed a Sheng Chia Pong to prepare a code of Chinese laws on modern lines.

Ten members of the House of Commons promise to form a pool of $5,000,000 as the nucleus of a fund to start a line of Atlantic greyhounds in opposition to the Morgan combine.

It is reported that the French government is considering the question of bestowing the decoration of the Legion of Honor on Admiral Dewey and General Miles.

Denmark has delayed action regarding the ceding of the West Indies to the United States until after the September elections.

It is stated that King Edward will distribute forty-thousand medals during the coronation exercises.

Industrial and Commercial.

An exact duplicate of the great plant to be built at Economy, Pa., by the American Bridge Company, will be erected at Chicago at a cost of nearly three million dollars. The Chicago works will be built by the United States Steel Corporation. About five thousand men will be employed and the annual output will be from 150,000 to 200,000 tons.

The South Bend Watch Company with a capital of $1,000,000 has been organized to fight the alleged combine between the Elgin National and the Waltham companies. The factory will be opened in six months in South Bend, Ind., and the watch will be called the "Studebaker," after the heaviest stockholders in the corporation.

Under the guidance of Col. William F.Cody (Buffalo Bill), five hundred Swedes are to be colonized in the Big Horn Valley in Wyoming. Some of the prospective settlers are in the United States, but the majority are still in Sweden. Colonel Cody says there is no farming safer or more profitable than irrigation farming.

The total amount of paper money in circulation in the United States, March 1, 1902, was $1,467,694,361. Of this amount $305,755,699 was in gold certificates; $35,168,390 in treasury notes of 1890; $335,402,730 in United States notes, and $347,570,246 in National bank notes.

About 145,000 coal miners throughout the entire anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania went on a strike May 12, for increased wages and shorter hours. Not one of the 357 colleries was in operation. Never in the history of hard coal mining has there been such a complete tie-up.

General.

Judge Buchanan of the State Circuit Court of South Carolina has decided that a negro who was a slave could not contract a legal marriage, nor make any kind of a contract before the constitutional amendments were adopted in 1867.

He also decided that a marriage between a white and a negro person in a State where such unions were legal becomes null and void when the parties to it move to South Carolina, and that the widow of such a union has no right accordingly to a homestead in her husband's property.

The three islands, St. John, St. Croix, and St. Thomas, which compose the Danish West Indies, have an area of only one hundred and eighteen square miles, and their population, consisting mostly of free negroes, is about 40,000. At the price of $5,000,000, which the United States has promised to pay for them, the sovereignty of those islands costs about sixty dollars an acre.

In Quincy, Mass., with no saloon, in twenty years the population has more than doubled, the valuation has increased nearly threefold, the deposits in the savings banks nearly fivefold, and new houses more than fivefold. While the population increased one hundred and twenty per cent, the amount expended for the poor department decreased twelve per cent.