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 The Green Bag,

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the chance of a lifetime, fo he went before day light and performed his unholy work. The result was a suit for one thousand pounds. The pillmaker held that his agent acted wholly without authority, but a verdict for fifty pounds was ren dered against him, and the " artist " was fined forty shillings. Ami now the Britishers say that "an attempt to copy American advertising meth ods " has been properly punished.

CURRENT EVENTS.

THE Prussian railway system has financially proved such a success, paying such a large amount into the German treasury, that the Swiss government pro poses to adopt the same system, and buy all the railroads within its territory, paying for them the sum of one hundred and eighty-six millions of dol lars. THE New South Wales government states that it has found such difficulty in placing in England an order for two thousand tons of steel rails of high carbon quality that it has been compelled to order them in America, where the manufacturers readily undertook the contract at the price of twenty-five dollars a ton. A SOUTH AFRICAN left his property to be equally divided between his two sons. Not being able to agree, they ask President Krueger to decide for them. "You are the eldest? " he demanded of one. " Yes," was the answer. " Then you shall divide the prop erty, and,'' he continued, turning to the other, " you are the younger, so you shall have first choice.''

AN effort has been made by the Venezuelan gov ernment to protect its birds. The government has prohibited the use of firearms in hunting herons, and only the egret plume can be gathered. If this rule can be enforced the birds will be preserved, as a man must " get up early " if he expects to run a foot race with a flying heron. The hunter must also take out a license and report the exact quantity of feathers he takes. THE new Chicago public library, begun five years ago, was opened in October. It has cost nearly two millions, and while the structure is massive and plain, the interior decorations are costly and beauti ful. The book capacity of the library is two million volumes, — it now contains a trifle over two hundred

and twenty thousand. An annual expenditure of thirty-five thousand dollars is authorized, a larger sum than is expended by any library except the British Museum. Appointments in the library will be made under civil service rules. DURING the last two years, Victoria, in southeast Australia, has successfully dealt with the labor ques tion by the formation of labor colonies and village settlements for the unemployed. The colonists re ceived government help in raising their first crops. This came in the shape of loans at a low rate of in terest and secured by the crops. The village settle ments were made near swamp lands, the reclaiming of which provided ample labor and support for all able to work. Thus, while aiding the settlers to support themselves, the government has realized large profits from the enhanced value of the lands. In this way twenty-five hundred families have been provided for and are now permanently settled on these once waste lands.

LITERARY NOTES.

THE Christmas number of HARPER'S MAGAZINE is a very attractive number, and the four pages in color are a new departure for HARPER'S. Among the articles we notice "The Queen's Jubilee," by Richard Harding Davis: "A Bird's Egg," by Ernest Ingersoll, with facsimiles in color of birds' eggs; "Puppets, Ancient and Modern." by Francis J. Zeigler; "Reindeer of the Jotunheim," by Hamblen Sears; "George William Curtis at Concord." by George Willis Cooke; and " The Wooing of Malkatoon," a narrative poem by Lew Wallace. The stories in this number are : " Destiny at Drybone," by Owen Wister; " Marianson. a Mackinac story," by Mary Hartwell Catherwood; " My Fifth in Mammy." by W. L. Sheppard; and " Mr. Willie's Wedding' Veil," by Mary Tracy Karle.

MR. GAURF.TT P. SERVISS, the widely known and popular astronomer, has a most instructive and inter esting article in APPLETON'S POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for December, in which he discusses the probability of there being planets Minilar to our own earth, containing inhabitants, among the so-called fixed stars. The apparatus and methods used in the production of animated photographs, in the cinemat ograph, biograph, etc., are fully described and pictured by J. Miller Barr. This number also contains " Our Liquor Laws as seen by the Committee of Fifty," by F. A. Fernald, and an illustrated paper on •• Pacific Coast Gulls," by H. L. Graham.