Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1899 — WASHINGTON GOSSIP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WASHINGTON GOSSIP

Great Britain continues to be the greatest customer of the United States, despite the fact that our purchases from her continue much below those of former years. The figures of the treasury bureau of statistics covering the calendar year exports and imports show that oar sales to the United Kingdom in the year 1838 were $535,W*1,787, against $482,095,024 in 1897. while our imports from Great Britain iu 1898 were but $111,361,617, against $159.002286 in 1807. Thus our sales to the United Kingdom are nearly five times as much as our purchases from her. The imimrts into the United Kingdom from the United States in the calendar year IS9S show a healthy increase in the items of bacon, lard, copper, raw cotton, leather, hops, corn and oats.

Secretary Alger and the members of the Senate and House Military Committees and their wires will go on a junketins tour through the West Indies. They will sail from New York on March 6, which is immediately after the adjournment of Congress, on the steamship Berlin. and will be gone until April 1. The party will lire on the steamer daring the entire trip and make short trips into the interior of the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. They go to study the military requirements of the islands so as to enable the two committees to see exactly what is needed in the way of increasing the army. The Attorney General has decided that the United States is not liable for any claims for damages arising out-of Dewey’s cutting the British cable at Manila. This opinion is rendered in response to an intimation from the British Government that it would like to know the attitude of the United States in regard to the matter. The Attorney General holds that the cutting of the cable was necessary as an exigency of war. ■ There is considerable adverse comment in Washington on the custom of allowing each prominent official a telephone at public expense. Cabinet ministers, heads of departments, etc., all have telephones, which are, however, denied other personages of note. Postmaster General Bmith has ordered Post office Inspectors Irwin of California*. Sullivan of St. Louis and Leatherman of t Ohio to proceed to Cuba to assist Director of Posts Rathbone. A new ruling is about to be adopted in the Postoffice Department. It is on account of the prodeness of some of the young women clerks to get married. It is almost a daily occurrence to receive an official communication advising the department that in the future "Miss Smith” must be addressed as “Mrs. Brown.” The Intention is to permit young women who change to allow their husbands to support them. The President received in his mail the other morning a rabbit's foot from Kernersville, N. C.