The arrangements have already been practically com pleted, the exhibits being for the most part assembled geographically, each country by itself. In going from room to room the curious minded find many queer things. For instance, there are a number of huge lumps of whitish stuff which defy identification, until one is told that they are chewing gum. All the chewing gum used in this country comes from Mexico in this shape. It is obtained from a tree the thick juice of which is boiled down like maple sap. One can also see strange kinds of bread never heard of before. Specimens of butter from the " cow tree" of Venezuela. The sap of this tree tastes something like milk, and the butter made from it is used on bread. Then there is a queer substitute for tea which is produced largely in southern South America, and it is believed that before long considerable quantities of it will be used in the United States.
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condition arises an answer to the assertion that the exchequer owes Ireland repayment for taxes paid in excess of her due share. The full observance of the act of union would entail an increase of the Irish contribution to the imperial expenses to more than thrice its present amount. The question is a wide one, and will occupy public attention for some time to come. Meantime, demonstrations can do no great good until the matter has been discussed in parlia ment and the government has declared its course of action. UNDER a recent act of enfranchisement, the women of the Isle of Man voted in the parliamentary elec tions. The main question at issue was one of licensing, and a majority of the women voted for beer. LITERARY NOTES.
IT is reported that the Czar of Russia is going to reform the present judicial system of Siberia. The reform may roughly be described as the transference of the judicial system from the ministry of the interior to the ministry of justice. The superior courts are now held in the capital of each province. Under the new arrangement Siberia will be divided into eight sections, and in each section a permanent assize court will sit, the judges and officials of which will be ap pointed directly by the minister of justice, and be responsible to him alone. To those who have studied the bureaucratic system now in use in Siberia, the importance of these beneficent changes will be evi dent. THE Irish agitation for the general revision and re adjustment of taxes has surged up with such vehe mence that it has become the topic of the hour in Great liritain's political circles. The report of the Royal Commission appointed by Mr. Gladstone's government to investigate the question has given rise in the chief centers of Irish life to series of public meetings, which have been distinguished by a good deal of high-sounding rhetoric, and by the remark able unanimity of Unionist and Nationalist, of ex treme divergence in all other matters. There is room, no doubt, for some measures of readjustment in the distribution of the tax burden, as the problem is one which is constantly affected by the law of change, which is at work in any community; but whether a readjustment could be made to lighten the Irishman's burden without injustice to the English man or Scotsman is the great question to be an swered. Much has been said about the treatment of Ireland as a separate fiscal entity as a condition of the act of union, but out of the very granting of this
APPLETO.VS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for June contains an important contribution to modern econom ics by the Hon. David A. Wells on "The Nomen clature and Forms of Taxation"; Dr. C. E. Pellen gives some interesting facts about the early use of alcoholic beverages, and Prof. W. Le Conte Stevens describes "The Evolution of the Modern Heavy Gun." "THE ingredients of that composite but intangible thing that Princeton men worship under the endear ing name of Old Nassau " is the theme celebrated in James W. Alexander's article on " Undergraduate Life at Princeton," which leads the June issue of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE. According to some authorities Stephen Crane depicted the feelings of a soldier in battle better from his imagination alone than others had done it from actual experience. Those who read "The Open Boat, in this number, will agree that he has pictured the sensations of the shipwrecked better from his own experience of it than others have achieved it by force of imagination. Richard Harding Davis concludes his first long novel, " Soldiers of Fortune," with a bit of hand-tohand fighting that ends the Revolution and makes the hero Dictator of Olancho for an hour. Montgomery Schuyler, a leading authority, de scribes the architecture of "The New Library of Congress." C. D. Gibson's glimpses of " London Salons " give an idea of what London is at the height of the sea son. One of the pictures shows a number of dis tinguished people : Du Maurier and Anthony Hope will be readily recognized.
