National.

The rule of a railroad limiting its liability to a certain stated sum where a passenger loses baggage carried on his ticket, has been upset by the appellate division of the New York supreme court. A complainant brought suit against a railroad for five hundred and fifty dollars, alleging that was the value of the contents of a trunk which he lost on one of the defendant's trains. The railroad set up a defense that it filed with the public service commission a tariff wherein it was stated that the railroad was responsible for one hundred and fifty dollars only on baggage carried without charge. On demurrer to the contention the complainant got judgment, the supreme court holding that a railroad company cannot limit its liability.

A public utilities commission bill was passed, 20 to 9, by the Connecticut Senate last week, after six hours' debate. Its passage in the House is also predicted. It provides for a commission of three members at salaries of five thousand dollars each, to have supervision over the transportation, telephone, and telegraph lines and express, gas, electric lighting and water companies in the state. The bill passed was a minority report of the judiciary committee, the bill of the majority having called for two commissions, one of which would have been the present railroad commission, with broadened powers, and a separate commission to supervise other public service corporations.

The postoffice department, for the first time in nearly thirty years, is self-supporting, and Postmaster-General Hitchcock has accordingly returned to the secretary of the treasury the three million dollars which was set aside from the public funds to defray the expenses of the postal service in the current fiscal year. There is at present a postal surplus of more than one million dollars. When he assumed the cabinet position under President Taft there was a deficit of more than seventeen million five hundred thousand dollars, the largest in the history of the postal service.

Judge Gary, chairman of the board of directors of the United States Steel Corporation, last week told the House investigating committee that he favored government control of all great corporations engaged in interstate commerce. He expressed his willingness to submit the intimate and intricate business affairs of his corporations to a duly accredited branch of the government, and would be satisfied to permit such a government agency to fix the price at which the corporation's products could be sold.

A thorough investigation of Indian bureau affairs will be made by the House committee on interior department expenditures, through sub-committees, which will continue to work during the recess of Congress. The charge that the American Indian on the reservation is under the arbitrary and unlimited power of the Indian agent and powerless to complain, for fear of punishment, has been taken up by the committee.

Announcement is made that work will begin shortly on the new union passenger station which is to be erected by the Illinois Central Railroad Company at Main street and Calhoun avenue, Memphis, Tenn., on the site of the structure now used for the same purpose. The station will be modeled after the Pennsylvania one in New York, and will cost about three million dollars.

To safeguard the United States from the results of private ownership of land along the Panama canal in time of war, Colonel Goethals, chief engineer of the canal and the chairman of the isthmian canal commission, before the House committee on interstate and foreign commerce last week, advised that the government purchase every acre of land within the isthmian canal zone.

The new union station at Worcester, Mass., costing about a million dollars, was opened to service last week. The station is used, as was the old, jointly by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, the Boston & Albany, and the Boston & Maine railroads.

The national treasury made a much better showing for May than it did for April and its condition, as compared with a month ago, is materially strengthened. It began the new month's business on the basis of a small surplus, one million dollars.

The gift of one million dollars by Morton P. Plant of New London, Conn., to the Woman's College to be located there, was without restrictions, save that the income be used to pay the running expenses of the courage.

Fifty postoffices, principally in western states, have just been designated as postal savings depositories to open July 3, making the total of such offices five hundred.

Twenty new national banks began business during May.

International.

A magnificent monument to King Victor Emmanuel II was dedicated in Rome, Sunday, June 4, in the presence of nearly a million people from all over Italy. The granting of the constitution by King Charles Albert in 1848 was also celebrated. The monument is the most colossal structure of the kind in the world and will have cost when completed about twenty million dollars. The plans were selected in June, 1884, yet it will not have been fully completed for some years. It occupies the left section of the Capitoline hill and opens into the very heart of Rome on the plaza where the palace of Venice stands. In front is the Corso, the leading thoroughfare of the city.

In order suitably to welcome their majesties, the King and Queen, on their visit to Calcutta in December next, the Hindu community is making preparations to celebrate the event in a proper way. This they propose to do by the ceremony of "tuladan" (weighing their majesties in gold), and also by the distribution of presents among the pundits, the feeding of the needy and the distribution among them of warm clothes, a musical procession, and the establishment of a permanent memorial. It is estimated that these celebrations will necessitate an expenditure of five hundred thousand rupees.

The coronation ceremonies in London have had little effect on the travel of American tourists. From Jan. 1 to June 1, 1911, as compared with 1910, 3,861 less first-class passengers left the United States ports for European ports. Second-class eastbound movement increased by 3,335 and the third-class by 44,439. From Jan. 1 to June 1, 39,824 first, 40,387 second, and 148,017 third-class passengers left American ports for European ports.

It is estimated by the United States consulgeneral that there are about seven thousand American residents in London. They are found in every walk of life in London, and a great many Americans are in business there. An element adding greatly to the American population of London is the large number of young men employed as managers or experts in British business houses and factories. This is particularly true of electrical concerns.

The volcano Colima in the state of Jalisco on the Pacific coast west of the City of Mexico, is in active eruption. This activity was preceded by a disastrous and violent earthquake that wrote seismographic records on instruments five and six thousand miles away.

Industrial and Commercial.

An amicable adjustment has been reached between the representatives of the carmen, boilermakers, blacksmiths, and sheet metal workers of the Southern railway and other lines. The machinists are to receive from one and one half to three cents per hour advance. The carmen are to receive a two-cent an hour advance flat. The boilermakers, blacksmiths, and sheet metal workers are to receive approximately the same increase. This settlement affects about eight thousand men and it is said the advance scale will apply, as it has done heretofore, to the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Norfolk & Western, and Chesapeake & Ohio, with nine thousand additional men. The approximate advance in wages is over one million dollars per year.

An English colliery proprietor has offered a sum of one thousand pounds as a prize for the best electric lamp suitable for the use of miners. The sum has been placed at the disposal of the home secretary. It must be so constructed as to render impossible the ignition of inflammable gas, either inside or outside the lamp, and the battery should be so constructed that any liquid it may contain cannot be spilled while the lamp is in use. The lamp must be capable of giving a light of not less than two candle-power continuously for at least ten hours and should be so locked that it cannot be opened without detection.

A "smoke dissipator" is a patented German invention for abating the smoke and gas nuisance of chimneys. It consists of a chimney carried to a proper height to insure a good draft. Above that point the chimney is built with small, funnel-shaped orifices, which allow air to enter from any direction the wind may be blowing. The diluted smoke escapes from the openings on the leeward side of the chimney and, becoming more and more diluted with air as it rises, finally passes out so mixed as to appear only as a darkened veil.

Over thirty million feet of logs, released by recent rains, have come into the booms in the vicinity of Fredericton, N. B., and hundreds of others are on their way down the rivers and streams. In many instances lumbermen had almost given up hope of being able to get the logs out this season because of the low condition of the rivers. More than forty-seven million feet are now stored there waiting to be taken to the sawmills.

The Canadian Pacific railroad transported from Quebec to Montreal, Toronto and the West during May twenty-nine thousand adult immigrants.

General.

In a ton of water from the Caspian sea there are eleven pounds of salt, in the Baltic eighteen pounds, in the Black sea twenty-six pounds, in the Atlantic thirty-one pounds, in the English channel seventy-two pounds, in the Mediterranean eighty-five pounds, in the Red sea ninety-three pounds, and in the Dead sea one hundred and eighty-seven pounds.