POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT-AMERICAN. February 17.-A naval court of inquiry is appointed by Admiral Sicard to investigate the blowing up of the Maine.

February 22.-The New York Senate passes the constitutional amendment providing for biennial sessions of the Legislature.

February 23.-Postmaster-General Gary and Governor Ellerbe, of South Carolina, offer rewards for the arrest and conviction of the murderers of Baker, the negro postmaster at Lake City, S. C.

February 25.-President McKinley appoints Col. Henry C. Corbin adjutant-general of the army, to succeed Gen. Samuel Breck, retired.

March 1.-Local elections in New York State result in Democratic gains.

March 3.-The New York Assembly passes the constitutional amendment providing for biennial legislative sessions.

March 7.-The United States Supreme Court decides the Nebraska maximum freight rate law unconstitutional.... The steam tug Dauntless is seized by the United States Government, charged with taking arms and men to Cuba.

March 8.-President McKinley nominates William J. Calhoun, of Illinois, for Interstate Commerce Commissioner....Governor Pingree, of Michigan, calls an extra session of the Legislature on March 22, to pass laws for uniform taxation.

March 9.-President McKinley signs the bill appropriating $50,000,000 for national defense, and measures of preparation for war are vigorously pushed.

March 11.-The Secretary of War issues orders rearranging the military departments of the country..... The House Committee on Naval Affairs provides for three

THE LATE SIR HENRY BESSEMER.

new battleships to cost about $6,000,000 each, one to be named the Maine.

March 14.-The Navy Department purchases two Brazilian cruisers just built in England....The special board on auxiliary cruisers appointed by the Navy Department begins the examination of merchant vessels at New York City.....Rhode Island Democrats nominate Daniel L. Church for governor.

March 15.-The New York Board of Education chooses Dr. William H. Maxwell city superintendent of schools, President Draper, of the University of Illinois, having declined the position.... The House Committee on Naval Affairs makes provision for the construction of five new dry-docks.

March 16.-Rhode Island Republicans renominate Gov. Elisha Dyer....Georgia Populists nominate Thos. E. Watson for governor....John Wanamaker opens his campaign for the governorship of Pennsylvania.... The House Committee on Naval Affairs decides to provide for six torpedo-boats and six torpedo-boat destroyers, in addition to the three battleships previously decided on; also to the erection of a smokeless-powder factory.

March 17.-Governor Black, of New York, appoints a commission of seven men to investigate the canal contracts....The battleships Massachusetts and Texas are detached from the fleet at Key West and ordered to Hampton Roads.

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT-FOREIGN. February 17.-The House of Commons discusses British interests in Alaska.

February 20.-The Swiss referendum results in popular approval of the proposed purchase of railroads by the federal government (see page 443).

February 21.-The Irish local government bill is introduced in the British House of Commons.

February 23.-At Paris M. Zola is found guilty of libeling the Esterhazy court-martial and sentenced to one year's imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs, the maximum penalty.

February 24.-The French Chamber of Deputies debates the Dreyfus agitation and the Zola trial and passes an overwhelming vote of confidence in the government.

February 25.-The army estimates introduced in the British House of Commons call for an increase of 21,700

men.

February 26.-An unsuccessful attempt is made to assassinate King George of Greece....The Spanish Cortes is dissolved, after voting 1,000,000 pesetas for the navy....German members leave the Bohemian Diet.

March 2.-Senhor Campos Salles is elected President of Brazil, and Senhor Rosa E. Silva, of Pernambuco, Vice-President.... The Spanish Government makes a reduction in the grain duties....The Bohemian Diet is closed by an imperial order.

March 3.-In the London County Council elections the Progressives (Liberals) secured 68 seats and the Moderates (Unionists) 48.

March 5.-The Austrian cabinet, headed by Baron von Gautsch, resigns, and Emperor Francis Joseph intrusts to Count von Thun Hohenstein the duty of forming a new ministry....Nineteen persons are arrested in Havana charged with conspiracy against the Spanish Government.

February 19.-The request of Spanish officials in Havana for a joint investigation of the wreck of the Maine is declined by the United States.

February 22.-France disclaims all intention of usurping British territory in Africa.

February 24.-Russia's pledge to Great Britain to keep the ports of China free is quoted in the British Parliament.

February 28.-Haiti pays a claim of Italy for illegal seizure and sale of a vessel and cargo belonging to an Italian merchant.

March 1.-The troops of Costa Rica are ordered to the Nicaraguan frontier, and war is threatened.

March 4.-Japan demands of Russia "an immediate and explicit statement" regarding the occupation of Port Arthur.

March 5.-Bulgaria demands of the Turkish Government an explanation of the movements of Turkish troops toward the Bulgarian frontier.

March 7.-China consents to lease Port Arthur and Talien-Wan to Russia for 99 years.

March 8.-The British Minister to China protests unsuccessfully against the cession of Port Arthur to Russia, on the ground that it will destroy the balance of power in China....Russia consents to open Port Arthur and Talien-Wan to foreign trade under Russian laws.

March 12.-Señor Polo y Bernabé, the new Spanish Minister to the United States, presents his credentials to President McKinley.... The Russian officials and military instructors in Corea are dismissed by the government.

March 16.-Spain remonstrates against the presence of the United States fleet at Key West and against other measures of defense taken by this Government. March 18.-The Spanish and Cuban commissioners to negotiate a commercial treaty with the United States meet in Washington.

INDUSTRIAL, COMMERCIAL, AND FINANCIAL DOINGS.

February 19.-The Knickerbocker Telephone Company is incorporated, with a capital of $7,500,000, to operate in New York and New Jersey.

February 28.-Contracts for the Anglo-German loan to China are signed at Peking; the interest is fixed at 42 per cent., redeemable in forty-five years; the contract price is 83.... United States Treasury operations for February result in a surplus.

March 7.-The great cotton mills at Biddeford, Maine, resume work, the strike having been declared off.

March 10.-The Society of Separatists, at Zoar, Ohio, decides to disband, after more than fifty years of communistic life; the property of the community is estimated at $3,000,000.

March 11.-The Bank of France raises the premium on gold, and buyers for New York transfer their operations to London.

March 14.-The strike in the cotton-mills at Taunton, Mass., comes to an end; resumption of work gives employment to 1,100 operatives.

OTHER OCCURRENCES OF THE MONTH.

Photo by Gutekunst.

THE LATE WILLIAM M. SINGERLY. (Proprietor of the Philadelphia Record.)

February 22. President McKinley delivers an address at the University of Pennsylvania.... A mob sets fire to he house of F. C. Baker, negro postmaster at Lake City, S. C., kills Baker and an infant child, and seriously wounds Baker's wife and two daughters.

February 25.The Spanish cruiser Vizcaya leaves New York harbor for Havana.

February 27.-A large shipment of reindeer arrives in New York from

Lapland, bound for Alaska.... The disabled French Line steamer La Champagne, Havre to New York, is towed into Halifax.

March 1.-A hurricane at New Caledonia sinks a French gunboat.... The twentieth anniversary of the coronation of Pope Leo XIII. is celebrated in Rome.

March 3.-The University of Budapest confers the degree of Doctor of Letters on "Carmen Sylva," Queen of Roumania.

March 4.-The jubilee anniversary of the Italian constitution is celebrated throughout Italy.

March 5.-More than 20 men are burned to death in a coal mine at Breslau, Prussia.

March 7.-It is announced that New York City property to the value of $1,100,000 has been deeded to

MRS. L. M. N. STEVENS.

(Who succeeds Miss Willard as president of the W. C. T. U.)

Columbia University by Joseph F. Loubat for a library endowment fund.

March 9.-Sheriff Martin and his deputies are acquitted of the murder of the strikers at Lattimer, Pa.

March 16.-A fire in Chicago causes the loss of more than a dozen lives.

March 18.-An explosion in a mine at Belmez, Province of Cordova, Spain, causes heavy loss of life; 75 men are known to have been killed and many others are unaccounted for.

March 19.-An earthquake is reported to have destroyed the town of Amboyna, in the Spice Islands, with the loss of about 60 lives.

OBITUARY.

February 17.-Rt. Hon. Sir James Stansfeld, twice president of the English Local Government Board, 77. February 18.-Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the World's W. C. T. U., 58.

February 19.-Prof. Alexandre von Liezenmayer, German historical painter, 59.... Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Knowles, late general secretary of the American Sabbath Union, 68. February 21.- Newbold H. Trotter, a well-known American animal painter, 70....Amos R. Eno, a wellknown New York City real-estate owner, 88.

February 22.-John Mulligan, president of the Connecticut River Railroad, 78.... Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Howlett, Baptist preacher and author, 71.

February 23.-Tai Wen Kun, father of the King of Corea.

February 24.-James Vincent Cleary, Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kingston, Ont., 70.... Ex-Judge Elliott Anthony, of Chicago, one of the bestknown jurists of the West, 70....Mgr. Sergius, Metropolitan of Moscow.

February 26.-Frederick Tennyson, eldest brother of Lord Alfred Tennyson, 91.

February 27.-William M. Singerly, Philadelphia journalist and financier, 65....Gen. William Booth Taliaferro, of Virginia, Confederate veteran, 75.

February 28.-Col. J. Thomas Scharf, historical writer, 55.... Col. Matthew C. Galloway, founder of the Memphis Avalanche, 78.

March 1.-Prof. William Augustus Rogers, of Colby University, an astronomer of national reputation, 66.

March 3.-Judge Charles E. Vanderburgh, of Minneapolis, ex-Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, 68. March 5.-Judge John Newton Hendren, last treasurer of the Southern Confederacy, 75.

March 6.-Ex-Congressman Hugh J. Jewett, railroad financier and manager, 81.

March 10.-George Müller, philanthropist, 92.

March 11.-Gen. William S. Rosecrans, 78....ExGov. Peter Hansbrough Bell, of Texas.

March 13.-Sir Richard Quain, physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 81....Zacharie Topelius, Swedish poet and historian, 80.

March 14.-Sir Henry Bessemer, inventor of Bessemer steel, 85.

March 16.-Jacob Tome, philanthropist, founder of the institute which bears his name in Port Deposit, Md., 87....Thomas McKean, a Philadelphia philanthropist, 56....Aubrey Beardsley, well-known English draughtsman and writer, 24.

March 17.-Rt. Hon. John Thomas Ball, formerly Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 83....Blanche K. Bruce, Register of the United States Treasury, formerly United States Senator from Mississippi, 57.

March 18.-Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, prominent woman-suffrage advocate, 72....Solomon Claypool, a well-known Indiana lawyer, 68.

March 19.-Admiral Popoff, aid-de-camp of the Russian Czar.

THE

HE American cartoonists this past month have devoted themselves almost exclusively to various phases of the one overshadowing topic; and we have chosen to confine our department of caricature to drawings that have a bearing upon the crisis in the relations between Spain and the United States, brought about through conditions in Cuba and the destruction of the battleship Maine. Most of these cartoons are so easy of interpretation that they require no comment. We have opened the department with two striking reproductions from full-page drawings that have appeared in Leslie's Weekly, both of them decidedly indicative of trouble. In the one Uncle Sam tests the whetted edge of his sword, and in the other he lays a firm hand upon a miscreant intended to typify the destroyer of the Maine. Our Mexican contemporary, El Hijo del Ahuizote, has published a number of striking cartoons on the situation, four of which we reproduce. The one at the bottom of this page represents the prospect of a

collision, both by land and sea, between the "Yankees'. and the "Gachupins," which is the favorite Mexican title for the Spaniards. The five cartoons on the next page are from various sources. The Minneapolis Jour