No. 25.

Price 5 Cents.

persons applying for licenses under the act, and to grant licenses to such as shall be entitled to them, no person hereafter to be licensed who has not had four years' experience in pharmacy. It is further provided, however, that any person who at the time of the passage of the act is engaged in the drug business on his own account, or who has served five years or upward at the business, and who is over twenty-one years of age, or any one who holds a certificate of registration, shall be granted a license upon making a written application therefor within ninety days after the organization of the board, and the payment of a license fee of five dollars.

The bill prohibiting labor strikes was rejected by the Vermont Legislature; as was also a bill to incorporate the Woman's Suffrage Association.

Deputy Moreau has introduced a bill in the French Chamber looking to the abolition of titles in France. He proposes to put a tax to be annually collected, thus graded: For the prefix "de," 500 francs; for the title of "Baron," 5,000 francs; Viscount," 10,000 francs; "Count," 20,000 francs; Marquis," 30,000 francs; "Duke," 50,000 francs, and for that of "Prince," 100,000 francs, while for "Duke" or "Count" with the prefix "Highness," 200,000 francs, and Prince" with the same prefix, 250,000 francs.

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The Swiss Government has been directed by a vote of the people to undertake the life-insurance business. The following amendment to the constitution was voted on and adopted by the people last week:

"The Confederation by statutory provision is to provide invalid and accident insurance, giving due consideration to existing institutions of the kind. It can make membership general or declare the same obligatory upon certain classes of citizens."

The Judiciary Committee of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention has recommended the adoption of the following provision in the fundamental law of the State: Verdicts of juries in civil cases may be rendered by the concurrence of ten members thereof, who shall subscribe their names to the verdict. The legislature may repeal, change, or modify this rule.

A determined effort will be made by the Philadelphia Barbers' Association to have the law of 1794 repealed or modified by the next Legislature. A petition is being drawn up asking to be allowed to accommodate the growing demand of the public for Sunday-morning shaving on the same principle that street-cars, bakers, and milkmen are allowed to be in operation on Sunday. The petition will not ask the making of Sunday work compulsory upon barbers.

The Boston "Nationalists" have issued a manifesto calling attention of the voters to the fact that the bill permitting towns and cities to control and operate gas and electric light plants, which passed the House, and was declared constitutional by the justices of the Supreme Court, was defeated in the Senate and referred to the next Legislature, and asking them to support candidates in favor of the bill, for which nearly 15,000 people petitioned the last Legislature.

The Reichstag Commission in charge of the labor bills will resume its sittings Nov. 4. The Reichstag will reassemble in the first week of December. The ultimate fate of the bills will depend upon the government's success in securing a majority.

A measure will be submitted to the next Reichstag in Germany to control emigration, so as to prevent the loss of males available for the military service.

The depopulation of France was discussed at a recent meeting of the Academy of Sciences. M. Laqueau, in order to promote marriages of young people, would abridge the term of military service, reduce the duties on breadstuffs, tax wine shops heavily, and make a rebate of rent to fathers of more than three children. Another suggestion is that the father of a family should be entitled to two, three, or four votes at elections, according to the size of his family.

In a speech delivered at Edinburgh, Gladstone, referring to the platform of the Liberals, said that there were seven test questions apart from that of home rule for Ireland, namely, the question of temperance, a working-day of eight hours, the disestablishment of the Church in Scotland, the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, woman suffrage, home rule for Scotland, and allotments. But he cautioned th

Liberal party against dividing one large army into seven small ones by declining to support a candidate who does not accept a particular test.

The restrictions upon the American lotteries have increased the demand for German lottery tickets, which German agents are trying to bring over as baggage. The New York customs officers, however, declare their intention to seize all such packages, as coming under Section 11 of the tariff law of 1890, which prohibits the importation of immoral printed matter. An importer whose tickets have been thus seized is trying to get a decision on this point from the Treasury Department, and says he has received assurances from Washington that the tickets will be released. Should the decision be delayed, a lot of tickets will become valueless, as the time of drawing is near.

More people are brought into the police stations entirely unconscious from the drinking of liquor than was the case some years ago, and more of them die while in that condition. The police lay it entirely to the quality of the liquor drunk, and say the case is the result of high license and eleven-o'clock closing. On account of the high tax for selling intoxicants, dealers are tempted to sell "manufactured" liquor, so as to make a big profit; and, on the other hand, those who drink liquor are very apt to buy a bottle of stuff when the saloons close up at eleven o'clock, so that they can continue their spree. Others purchase by the bottle because it is cheaper than by the drink, and, having it with them, are tempted to drink three times the amount they otherwise would were they to go from saloon to saloon and purchase it by the glass. Boston Herald.

Great dissatisfaction exists among the Indians of the Chickasaw Nation because of a charter granted by their government to a company of twenty men giving them absolute control of all gold and precious mineral found in a section of the Arbuckle Mountains twenty-five miles square. The Indians claim that the charter has been granted to a few white men, and that a number of the legislators, with the governor, have been taken into the company. It is asserted that if the Interior Department does not annul the charter and place the lands under the same laws that govern gold and silver mining in other parts of the United States there will be serious trouble, if not open war against the company.

JUDICIAL.

An Iowa judge instructed a grand jury that after the passage of the Wilson Bill by Congress it was a violation of the laws of Iowa to sell liquor without a proper permit, whether the liquor were imported in original packages or not. He told the grand jury that the decisions of the inferior United States courts in other States were not binding on the courts of the State of Iowa.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has rendered decisions affirming the convictions in the cases of managers of certain Worcester clubs where liquors were sold. The defendants had appealed, and in each case it was claimed that the intoxicants were the property of individual members, and that the club bought and stored the beverages in the capacity of an agent. The Court has decided that a place is equally a nuisance under the statute, whether used by a club to sell liquor to its members, or to distribute among the members liquors owned by them in common, or to procure for and dispense to members liquor which belonged to them individually.

From the annual report of the Court of Claims, submitted to the Attorney-General, it appears that the aggregate number of suits commenced against the Government in that court, and pending, is about 14,000, and that the war claims alone now pending number about 8,000, involving an estimated aggregate of $400,000,000. During the past year, under the general jurisdiction of the court, claims amounting to nearly $2,000,000 have been disposed of. In these cases the amount recovered was $210,000. Claims against the District of Columbia have been adjusted by the court to the extent of $850,000, at a cost of but $45,000. Of the war claims there were nearly $6,000,000, and the finding for the claimants aggregated $103,000. In all the departmental cases tried the findings have been adverse to the claimants.

GOVERNMENT IS:

I. Inefficient. After consulting the best legal talent in the country, a number of New York merchants have determined to fight the new tariff law, on the ground that the section with regard to rebates to be allowed to holders of paid tobacco (To-DAY, p. 340), being part of the bill which passed Congress, could not be omitted from the enrolled bill signed by the President without vitiating the whole bill. It

is the opinion of Congress that the Tariff Act is null and void, as no tariff bill has been signed by the President, according to the Constitution.

A question has arisen in regard to the meaning of the provision in Sect. 25 of the new Ballot Law in New York, which says that "the voter shall fold all the ballots delivered to him in the middle lengthwise and then crosswise, but in such a way that the contents of the ballots shall be concealed and the stubs can be removed without exposing any of the contents of the ballots." The Secretary of State says that the first fold of the ballot should be from the bottom upward. The Tammany leaders have instructed their voters to fold from one side over to the other. Some insist on a literal interpretation of the law, although all ballots could not be folded alike. According to the literal interpretation of the provision, the first fold is to be determined by the space occupied on the ballot by the column of names.

The New Orleans police have failed to track the murderer of their late chief, Hennessy, and the private Pinkerton agency is to take charge of the investigation. This report gives general satisfaction.

An edition of the Monroeville (Ind.) Morning Gazette was thrown out of the mail by the local postmaster for publishing the name of the winner of a sofa pillow which was disposed of by lottery for a poor widow.

Referring to the statement of the Land Commissioner, that the valuable timber on the public lands is fast disappearing, and that the laws are inadequate to prevent the destruction, — the Washington correspondent of the New York Sun says that conflicting opinions of the courts as to who may appropriate the timber lands have added to the difficulties created by the imperfections of the laws. One English corporation in California got possession of 14,000 acres of timber land, and several persons were indicted for complicity in the transaction. According to the report of the Land Official, "whole ranges of townships covered with pine timber, the forests at headwaters of streams, and timber land along the watercourses and railroad lines have been cut over by lumber companies, under pretence of title derived through preemption and homestead entries made by their employees and afterward assigned to the companies. Steam sawmills are established promiscuously on public lands for the manufacture of lumber procured from the public domain by miscellaneous trespassers. Large operators employ hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of men cutting

Government timber, and sawing it up into lumber and shingles, which, when needed and purchased by local citizens, can only be obtained by them at prices governed by the market value of timber brought over expensive transportation routes from points of legitimate supply." As to the old Timber Culture Act, whose repeal was undertaken at the late session of Congress, it never produced satisfactory results. The correspondent of the Sun writes: " Cattle syndicates and other corporations often used its privileges to acquire land by a mere form of planting, the trees not being brought to maturity. Railroad tickets have been issued to which certificates of homestead entries under the Timber Culture Law were attached as gratuitous coupons. It is certain that only a small fraction of the planted area called for under the vast aggregate of original entries made under this law is now really planted to timber. Sometimes the soil and climate may have prevented the successful raising of young trees, sometimes the planting is not done by those who make a regular business of such work; at all events, the Timber Culture law did not do what was expected of it."

The New York County Medical Society has been conducting an investigation into the condition of the New York public schools. In the report prepared by the committee, the members say:

"It is believed that the following conditions will be evident to any one who will take the time and trouble to inspect the primary schools: First. Most of them are grossly overcrowded. One of the results of this is that individual classes are much too large. The rules of the Board of Education allow one teacher to fifty pupils in the primary schools, and no class shall contain more than seventy-five pupils. One teacher is thus obliged to do the foundation work in a class numbering from fifty to seventy-five children. They have to be taught to read, and in every way their undeveloped intelligences led along with a proper start and bent. How sixty little children can be properly taught as if one brain is a problem in physiology as well as in pscy chology. Bad as it is the school accommodation for young children is inadequate in this city. This is particularly true in the poor and congested districts, where the primary school must furnish all the education that destitute children can take advantage of, as they soon have to begin to earn their living on a pitifully insufficient equipment. There are one hundred and nineteen primary schools, with an official estimate of sittings for 110,855 pupils. The primary school population is estimated at 168,000, so that this leaves about 57,000 unprovided for.

"Second. The light is bad in many classrooms. Most of the primary schools are situated in the lower part of grammar school buildings, which are

closely surrounded in many cases by adjoining structures. This interferes with the proper lighting of the rooms, and gas has to be occasionally or constantly employed. The strain to which the children's eyes are subjected by artificial light or by conflicting lights cannot but result in various degrees of asthenopia.

Third. The ventilation is often defective, and the cubic air space allowed to each pupil is unsufficient. This ranges from seventy to one hundred cubic feet according to the grade. The Board of Health requires that in tenement houses the allowance shall be at least four hundred cubic feet, and in some cases six hundred cubic feet, to each person; four hundred cubic feet is required for each lodger in the lodging-houses of this city.

"Fourth. Many of the classrooms are unprovided with desks. This forces the children to sit in constricted, uncomfortable positions, especially when figuring on slates.

"Fifth. As a rule, there is no proper place to hang wraps and coats. Some of the classrooms have narrow wardrobes at the back, where wet clothing is shut in, and others depend on the back seats."

The Berlin (Germany) correspondent of the New York Sun writes: ·

"A gentleman who enjoys the confidence of the minister for ecclesiastical and scholastie affairs states that the government has no intention of taking the financial management of public schools into its own hands. It is only proposed that the state shall aid very poor communes, by dividing with them the expense of keeping up the school. Thus it will be seen that the communes will continue to keep the teachers at starvation wages, and the only difference will be that the State will divide the honors with the communes in doing so."

II. Extravagant. About twelve years ago, the Government began the erection of its Federal building at Chicago. Government architects furnished the plans, and inspectors were employed to see that the plans were carefully followed. The material was officially tested, and the work, in the course of its progress, daily examined. Before the roof was put on, however, the walls commenced to settle. This they have continued to do, until now they are from six to eighteen inches below their former lines. Congress has appropriated $47,000 for repairing it, but it is likely to be condemned, and the 3,600 employees ordered removed to some other place. It is settling at an increasing rate and unevenly. It cost, originally, $6,000,000.

The municipal government of London, which has a population of 4,500,000, costs the taxpayers $25,000,000. The population of New York City is 1,500,000, and its municipal government costs the taxpayers $38,000,000.