Arizona silver belt., 1900-01-04

United States in the present war, and declaring that American citizens in trading with both belligerants violate no neutrality obligations.
 | Mexico will soon have the longest | electric railroad in the world. It is proposed to join with it the states of i Tobasco, Yucatan, Chiapas and Cam peche with the railway system of Cen tral Mexico. It will be 4O9,2 miles long and will cost sl5, 100000.
 It is a striking coifc dence that Ger eral Lawton should have made his chief fame as an Indian fighter by his pursuit and capture of one man named Geronimo and should have met his death in another quarter of the world l while in pursult of another Geronimo.
 During the present fiscal year. de- ficiencies in appropriations reachs d the sum of S50,3O6,3l1, which is tie | greatest of any year since reconstruc- | uOn days. In the war department alone it was S45. l67 ,9ll; in the navy, | B. 143 740; and for the treasury, Sl,- | 7Ig,U0O.
 The British steamship Benedick has been chartered at Philadelphia to load coal for Lisbon, Portugal The yes sel will carry $500 tons of Pennsyl- vania-mined coal, which will be the first shipment of the kind ever made to Portuguese port. Heretofore British-mined coal has had undisputed claim to the trade of Portugal.
 In war and in peace the sick and mortality record of the United States navy shows little difference. The sur geon-general of the navy reports that | the ratio of admission on the sick list ih 1898, embracing the operations of the war, was S7.l69 per thousand as compared with s3.S53 per thousand in | 1892, when peace prevailed.
 The report of the director of the | mint states that the various hints and assay offices in the country handled a greater amount of gold the past year ! than ever before. Stocks of gold in- creased over s2O0,OOO,OOO during the year and now amount to nearly a billion dollars. The production of gold is increasing at an enormous rate 1 throughout the world.
 The Pennsylvania railroads plan for pensioning aged employees went into effect on the lst instant. Under | the plan, taiihful employees who wear out their strength in the company's | service have the pleasant prospect be- fore them of not finding themselves in old age entirely without resources. The plan is worthy of emulation by other railroads and large corporations, 1 which would prove conducive to bet, ter and more devoted servants.
 The exports from Spain to Cuba averaged about 5000, GOO a year and consist of flour, vegetables, preserved fruits and foods, boots and shues and other leather goods, paper and sta | tionery, firearms and ammunition and all sorts of miscelaneos merchandises which in future can be furnished by our merchants and manufacturers. It transpires that the result of free ing Cuba' is conquest of greater magnitude than one would realize at first glance.
 During the past year immense num- bers of troops were conveyed by water and rail over distances reaching as high as 10, 900 miles During the year 1899 quarter of a million of soldiers were transported from point to point all over the United States, to the West Indies on the east and the Philippines on the west; an army of 20,O00 was brought home from tho Philippines and replaced by one of 60,000. Not troop ship has been lost and railroad fatalities were few.
 The London Daily Chronicle, com menting upon the decision of the United States government to trans port from the Philippines not only the Spanish prisoners falling into the hands of the Americans, but their families as well, and the Spanish civil officials, with their families. says: This action of the United States is characteristically generous toward their late foe. It can hardly fail to awaken responsive echo, and to do much to diminish bitterness resulting from the recent war.n
 The hints during the last fiscal year turned out IS, 244.707 silver dol lars and s9, 466, SIT in subsidiary silver. This is the largest amount of silver coins that have ever been made in the
 United States in nine years and, in deed, the largest years coinage in the
 history of the government, excepting about ten years prior to 1900, when
 the law required the coinage of at
 least two million dollars worth of sil.
 yer every month. There are in circu.
 lation at the present time seventy. ! a.i 1.ll .E