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sures lhe payment of the teachers ’ salaries at once, but for the adop tion of this amendment, the passage of which in the senate is assured, the teachers would be forced to wait for their money until next Decem ber. As the gross earnings of the steam railroads in Georgia last year were $37,000,000, it will be seen that this occupation tax will produce an an nual revenue of $370,000 from the steam railroads alone, to which will be added the occupation tax to be collected from all the street railroads in the state. The payment of this tax is to commence in January, 1908, it being required that some officer of such corporation shall by the 10th of the month following the month for which the tax is due pay the same to the treasurer, at the same time rendering to the comptroller general a statement, under oath, showing the gross receipts from bus iness in the state for the month for which payment is made. Jap Poachers Repulsed. Advices were received at Victoria, B. C., of an attempted onslaught on seals by the Japanese sealing schoon ers Kaike and Midoli on June 1, on the seal rookery at Copper Island guarded by Russians. The schooner Kaike returned to Japan and report ed three sealing boats and twelve men captured and one man shot by Russians. The Midori, which had been an chored close to the Kaike, was fired on by the Russian rookery guard. Sad Fourth Anniversary for Pope. The fourth anniversary of the election of Pius X. was not an oc casion for great (rejoicing by the Church. The fact is, it is inflicted with troubles such as it has not had in more than five decades, and which are the chief cause of the Pope’s ill health. The main support of the church in Germany, the Center party, has divided on the question of the censure issued by Rome against works which are deemed undesirable from a church point of view, and a portion of the German Catholics, which in cludes well-known Catholic personal ities, have joined in asking the aboli tion of the Congregation of the In dex, and, from all appearances, in tend to obtain it. In France matters have been go ing from bad to worse ever since the suspension of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and that govern ment, nearly four years ago. No hope is entertained at the Vatican that the trouble will ever be mended in that country unless a revolution takes place. • Italy is becoming more and more anti-clerical, and in Rome itself, which is supposed to be the center of Catholicity, hardly one-tenth of the population attends religious sei vices. In Austria the “Out of Rome” party has been making slow but steady progress, and thousands of Catholics have been lost to the church within the past four years. In South America, where religion is just as superficial as, if not more than, in Italy, the church has been losing ground within the past few months, as witnessed by the demon strations against the Jesuit order in Chili and the recent Protestant pro selytizing among the Italians emi- WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. grated to Argentina and Brazil, which has proved highly successful. Australia is not making so much progress as it was hoped would be the case when the present Cardinal 'Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, was promoted to the Sacred College. In fact, recent reports received from there show a great falling off in church attendance, as compared with conditions a few years ago. The same is the case in England, where the Catholics, stanch as they always have been in their allegiance to the church, are beginning to draw away, so that at the present moment, outside of the members of the Catholic aris tocracy and the servants employed in their homes and the large number of Irish Catholics who have emigrat ed to England, there are hardly enough people left to the Church to support it properly. This situation was made known to the Vatican two or three years ago by a group of English Catholics of prominence, who feared Catholicity in the British Kingdom would die out. Their report was then turned down at the Vatican as absurd, but it is now a matter of public knowl edge t'halt (the Vatican authorities have since ascertained the alleged facts to be correct. garding which the Pope and the car- There is only one continent re dinals have sufficient reasons to con - gratulate themselves, and that is North America, in which it is use less to deny that the church has made rapid progress within the past few years. At the same time, there are pessimists who point out the large number of losses suffered by the church because of the fact that thousands of Catholics, after emigrat ing to the United States or Canada, never set foot in the church, causing the generation following to be lost to the church. American bishops have reported time and again to the Vatican that the class of Italian im migrants arriving in the United States is utterly unavailable for the support of the church. Appeals for 50 More Police. In an effort to put the police force in a position to deal adequately with crimes against young women and girls, Acting Police Commissioner O’Keefe, of New York City, called upon Acting Mayor McGowan and urged him to do all in his power to get an appropriation sufficient to pay 500 new policemen. Mr. O’Keefe wants to increase the patrol force by that number at the earliest possible date. Moorish Port Shattered. The Moroccan port of Casablanca has been bombarded by French and Spanish warships; hundreds of rebel Moorish tribesmen have been killed, the Moorish quarter has been reduced to ruins, many Frenchmen have been wounded and the first move in the punitive policy of the powers has beer vigorously and successfully car ried out. r- The French cruiser Du Chauyla and the Spanish gunboat Don Alvaro de Bazan participated with the Gali lee in the bombardment of the vil lages surrounding Casablanca, which were destroyed by the fire of the war ships. During the bombardment large reinforcements of tribesmen came up and many of them were killed or wounded. * The French ships fired a total of about two thousand shells. The num ber of Moorish dead will run into the hundreds. A single party of marines killed 150 Moors. The French wounded number about twelve. No Frenchman was killed. Venezuela Will Pay Belgium. Venezuela advised Belgium last Wednesday, July 31, that in recog nition of the principles of arbitra tion she would pay the disputed cjaims of Belgian creditors, amount ing to $2,000,000, in conformity with the decision of The Hague tribunal. Standard’s Boast a Lying Pretense. Following the smashing blow de livered to the Standard Oil Company by Federal Judge Landis at Chicago, the government made public a crush ing array of figures gathered by Her bert Knox Smith, the commissioner of corporations. These figures show: First, that the vast Rockefeller monopoly since 1882 has paid out $552,000,000 —more than half a bil lion—in dividends, all the time piling up, in addition, a surplus which as long ago as 1896 had aggregated nearly $80,000,000, and has since grown to unknown proportions. Second, that the oft-repeated boast of the Standard, that it had reduced the price of oil and thus had been of benefit to the consumer, is false now and always has been false. “The Standard,” says Commis sioner Smith, “has consistently used its power to raise the price of oil during the last ten years, not only absolutely, but also relatively to the cost of crude oil.” The commissioner shows the profils on illuminating oil to have advanced per gallon as follows: September, 1897, to December, 1899, 5 3-10 cents. From 1900 to 1902, 6 cents. From 1903 to June, 1905, 6 6-10 cents. This was an increase, in profit, of 2 3-10 cents per gallon in eight years. “When it is remembered,” says the eommisjjjoner, “that from 7-10 of a cent to 1 cent per gallon con stitutes a good profit, the meaning of an increase of 1 3-10 cents is evi dent. ’ ’ A much greater increase in profits, he shows, has taken place in the ease of the Standard’s by-products, such as gasolene, lubricating oil and par affin wax. Averaging them up into illuminating oil, the net increase iu the profit per gallon, from 1897 to June. 1905, was 1 8 10 cents. While the dividends from 1882 to 1906 were $532,000,000, the net earn ings, the commissioner says, were much more; at least, $790,000,000. These enormous profits were based on an investment worth at the time of its original acquisition not over $75,000,000. and not over $147,000,- 000 in 1896. From 1903 to 1905 the average net yearly earnings were about 68 per cent. Cortclyou Overrules Reform. James R. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior, some time ago issued a reg ulation permitting officers and clerks of his departments to file expense ac counts without swearing to their ac curacy at Washington. He figured that he could save the government thousands of dollars each year paid out as fees to notaries. Every time an employe of the government gave a porter a rip of fifty cents, for in stance, and bad not time to take the porter’s receipt for it, he had to go before a notary and swear that he had really 'given the tip. Mr. Garfield held that the government could trust its officers. But Robert J. Trace well, Comp troller of the Treasury, who passes on all questions of law relating to disbursements, and George B. Cortel you, Secretary of the Treasury, his official superior, hold that the law re quires verification under oath. Hence, in putting out a new method of ac counting for money disbursed by the government, they set aside the Gar field regulation, altlieugh without mentioning it specifically. Silk Mill Girls Inspire a Strike. Four hundred silk mill workers employed at the Wilkes-Barre Silk Mill, and 150 of the Bamford Broth ers’ Mill w r ent on strike, without no tice to their employers. Later they presented demands for an eight-hour day and higher wages. The strikers comprise about two-thirds of the working force and to avoid trouble both mills were shut down. Judge Landis “Busts” Church and School Furniture Trust. Federal Judge Landis, at Chicago, ordered the dissolution of the Church and School Furniture Trust, which was recently fined $43,000 for admit ted violation of the anti-trust laws. The court made permanent the in junctions previously issued against the constituent companies, restrain ing them from further trust agree ments or conspiracies to monopolize and restrain trade in violation of the law. Negro Crimes Due to Pictures. Suggestive pictures in saloons are the chief cause of assaults on women by negroes in the South. So said Mrs. Nannie Curtis, of Texas, Na tional Organizer of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, in an address delivered at Lincoln, Neb. “The saloons have robbed us white women of our loved ones, of our homes, and now they have robbed us of our clothes, and have hung us up on the walls of saloons to inflame the minds of drunken and black brutes,” she said. Catholics Seize Calvin’s Citadel. A combination of Catholic, Social ists, Free Tninkers and others who advocate complete separation of State from Church have succeeded in stopping the appropriating of public money in the Geneva Canton, Swit zerland, for religious purposes. The struggle has been on for years in this “citadel of Protestantism,” from which Calvin inspired the move ment which gave birth to the Hugue nots of France and Holland and the Puritans of Scotland and America. In 1873. the Swiss Constitution was revised, reaffirming absolute liberty of conscience. Jesuits and other teaching orders were interdicted, the founding of new convents or reli gious orders was forbidden and it was provided that the interdiction could be extended to any other religious order deemed dangerous to the State or the peace of the different creeds. The orthodox Catholics in Geneva declined to accept any appropriation under this regime. •In the recent election in Geneva Catholicism held (Continued on Page Twelve.) PAGE FIVE