The age-herald., 1898-11-25

tinental trunk line from Kansas City to. San Diego.
 Secretary Bliss, summing up the report of Governor Brady, of Alaska. calls attention to- the difficulty of preventing the snug gling of liquor into Alaska, it being im- possible to enforce present regulations without fleet of revenue. cutters and steam launches to patrol the tortuous channels of Southeast Alaskan waters.
 should Pay Revenue
 Smuggling prevails and saloons are open in all of the towns and mining camps. The governor believes that Alaska should and can pay revenue into the, United States Treasury.
 Under high license law he estimates that the liquor traffic would yield an annual revenue of not less than $200. .000; tax of a few cents per case of salmon would pro- duce from S35, 900 to s5O,000; ten cents per ton on wharfage collected during the past year would have yielded $100000. He recom- mends, however, that any system of tax at'on of the territory be deferred until land laws shall have been provided.
 Many sections of Alaska, it is shown, are suitable for agricultural pursuits; with proper care cattle can be raised in the mider districts. It cannot be doubted that in the course of time vast herds of reindeer will cover the plains of northern Alaska, and few thousand dollars spent now in helping the Eskimo to obtain herds will save the expenditure of many thousands in the future.
 The fur seals are doomed unless the pelagie sealing can be stopped. The raising of blue foxes is becoming an important in- dustry.
 Representation in congress for the terri tory of Alaska is strongly urged.
 There has been great development Tn quartz mining in southeast Alaska and along the coast as far as Unlaska: Coal has been discovered near the Upper Yukon : the Panama and on Prince William Sound.
 Public buildings at Sitka are needed, and 1t is recommended that congress approprl- ate $110,000 for the erection of penitentary and other buildings.
 An appropriation of $6OO0O for the educa- tion of children in Alaska is earnestly rec commended. Attention is called to the fact that.the rapid increase of the number or vessels plying Alaskan waters necessitates the erection of many lighthouses.
 Webster Davis Report
 Assistant Secretary of the Interior Weo- ter Davis, in his annual report, says the 12.681 appeals from the pension bureau ana SIP motions for reconsideration filed during the year make a number unprecedented In any one year or any two years In the hls- tory of the board of pension appeals. Ihe proportionate increase still continues and on October last there were 1lS2O such ap- peals and motions pending, and Secretary Bliss concurs in Assistant Secretary Davis' recommendations for providing for three additional members of this board; for addi- -tional legislation attending the act Of Au- gust ', 1892, relating to marriages; legisla- ton regulating the payment of pensions to soldiers who deprive their families of the use thereof because of immoral habits and incompetency; and legislative amendment in behalf of widows whose husbands died while in the service, death not being the result of any violation of any law, regu- lation or rule of the military naval serv- ice, death under such conditions to be held to be equivalent to an honorable discharge, as now required.