National.

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 gas company declared it could not afford to furnish it at that price. The court rules that the company cannot include in its list of property and good will its franchises, a free gift from the state, but which the company values at over $12,000,000 and on which it claims it must earn a fair return. "In this case," says Justice Peckham, who rendered the decision, "the complainant has a substantial monopoly of the gas business of the city of New York, and those who wish to use gas must take it from this complainant. In this case, as there is no possibility of competition, there should be no allowance for good will."

The Government's suit against the various railroads in the Union Pacific system and the half dozen men who control their affairs came on before a special examiner of the United States Circuit Court at New York, Jan. 5, for the actual taking of testimony. The Government's bill, alleging restraint of trade and competition, was filed in the district of Utah early last year.

It is expected that the coming sessions of the Legislatures of five New England states, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, will be particularly interesting this year, as the incoming governors in each state will recommend uniform legislation in the matter of forestry, fisheries, and automobiles.

National bank examiners will be put on a salary or per diem and expense basis, and the present fee system will be abolished, much to the betterment of all interests concerned, if recommendations made by Secretary Cortelyou, Comptroller Murray, and Deputy Kane of the Treasury Department are carried into effect.

The United States Supreme Court has declined to review the case of the $29,240,000 fine of the Standard Oil Company, which was reversed in the Circuit Court of Appeals and then carried by the Government to the highest court on a writ of certiorari. The case will now be retried in Judge Landis' court.

The total of public gifts and bequests for 1908 was smaller than the year before, but it still reaches $90,452,090. The distribution was: Educational institutions, $36,052,039; charities, $39,729,961; religious organizations, $4,413,959; museums, galleries, and public improvements, $9,401,631; libraries, $834,500.

The grand jury at Pittsburg, Pa., has found true bills against the seven councilmen accused of accepting bribes and conspiring to secure bribes, and the two former bankers accused of giving bribes.

Protests against converting the floor of the Hetch-Hetchy basin, a part of the Yosemite National Park, into a reservior for a water-supply for San Francisco are being registered at Washington.

The sum of $400,000 has been appropriated by a Senate bill for the purchase or construction of a building in Paris as the home of the American ambassador.

The total excavations for December on the Panama Canal were 3,261,673 cubic yards, compared with 2,920,404 in November and 2,201,734 in December, 1907.

The Government receipts and expenditures for the first six months of the current fiscal year show a deficit of approximately $64,288,463.

The New York Teachers' College, affiliated with Columbia University, has just received a gift of over one million dollars in property.

International.

The Christmas postal traffic at London this year was very heavy, and in the parcels department a record was created. At St. Martin's-le-Grand it was calculated that during Christmas week about seventy million letters, cards, and newspapers were dealt with by London offices alone. The first colonial mail of importance was a despatch of 3,842 parcels to New Zealand, but the next mail took out 5,311 parcels. The total number of parcels despatched to India during the eleven weeks preceding Christmas was 73,972. The total number of parcels sent abroad from Mount Pleasant during the nine weeks ended the 19th of December was 468,736. During Christmas week 64,110 parcels were despatched to the Colonies and the Continent. During the week ending Christmas eve 58,861 parcels arrived from abroad.

Postmasters throughout the United Kingdom have begun the payment of old-age pensions under the act of the last session of Parliament to persons over seventy years of age. Seven hundred thousand applications for pensions have been received, of which two hundred thousand were disallowed, chiefly because the applicants have been in receipt of poor relief. It is estimated that the old-age pensions will cost the country $25,000,000 annually. The highest pension is five shillings weekly, which will be paid to applicants having an income below $105 a year. If their income exceeds $105 but is less than $155, small amounts will be paid.

The commission appointed in 1907 to investigate opium traffic in the Straits Settlements and the Malay States has presented a report against the closing of the opium shops, taking the ground that the evils arising from the use of opium are generally exaggerated and that they have not increased in the past decade. The commission recommends making the production and distribution of opium a government monopoly and increasing the price of the drug.

Belgium has relinquished the Pekin-Hankow Railroad to China upon the payment of the redemption price, about $30,000,000. China will at once dispense with the foreign employes of the road, retaining only the consulting engineers. China's initial success in constructing and operating the Pekin-Kalgan Railroad has created general confidence in her ability to take over and operate other foreignbuilt railroads as they become redeemable.

Wilbur Wright, the American, on Dec. 31, at Le Mans, France, broke all previous aeroplane records with a magnificent flight that lasted for two hours and nine minutes. He covered officially a distance of seventy-three miles. By his flight Mr. Wright wins the Michelin cup, valued at $5,000, and a money prize of $4,000.

With the induction into office of J. J. Fern as mayor, Honolulu became self-governing, in accordance with the charter granted the city by the Territorial Legislature at its last session. This is the first time in the history of the islands that local self-government has been delegated to any city or town in the group.

Industrial and Commercial.

The Memphis Steel Construction Company, capitalized at $100,000, announce that they will begin at once the establishment of a first-class plant for the manufacture of structural steel and bridge material. The company will devote much of its time to the construction of steel buildings in various parts of the South, most of which work heretofore has been done by northern and eastern steel companies.

Over nine hundred miles of railway have been equipped with automatic block signals during the past twelve months, and probably two thousand miles will be equipped during 1909. Other block signal progress is the addition of over one thousand miles of the "telegraph block system" by two companies, the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul and the Northern Pacific.

For the year just passed the fire losses in the United States and Canada amounted to $238,562,250. Aside from the Chelsea conflagration in April, causing a property loss of $10,500,000 and an insurance loss of $8,500,000, there were no fires of any great magnitude, but there was a steady stream of small losses throughout the year.

The principal plant of the Pressed Steel Car Company at McKees Rocks, near Pittsburg, Pa., which employs about six thousand men, has been placed in readiness for complete resumption soon. It has been practically closed in all departments for seven months.

Passenger travel across the Atlantic in the year 1908 shows a shrinkage of nearby one million persons, as compared with the preceding year. For the first time in many years, the eastbound figures are in excess of the westbound.

Early in 1909 New Bedford (Mass.) cotton mills will have in operation 2,137,811 spindles, an increase of 49,408. New Bedford cotton manufacturing corporations paid in dividends in 1908 an aggregate amount of $1,798,595.

Manufactures exported from the United States in the fiscal year 1908 aggregated $750,000,000. Of this grand total practically one-half went to Europe.

On Dec. 23 surplus cars on railroads of the United States and Canada were 222,077, an increase of 47,094 from Dec. 9.

Mining has the greatest future of any Siberian industry. Gold in placers is the chief mineral product at present.

An organization has been formed to promote the construction of a Toledo-Chicago inland waterway.