Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1900 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

A bill has been introduced in Congress to appropriate $4,000,000 to buy tbe Panish West Indies. The diplomatic and consular appropriation bill as finally agreed on by tbe House committee on foreign affairs carries a total of $1,740,470. Secretary of State Hay bas recommended to Congress that tbe consulate at Christiania, Norway, be raised te the grade of consul general. A party from tta American surveying commission, which is headed by KernAdmiral Walker, bas commenced surveys of a Panama canal route. The following telegram was received in Washington from United States Consul Griffith at Brownsville, Texas: ‘‘Schooner Mcluuis, from Galveston for Brazos and Sautiago, wrecked os the Mexican coast. Seven- lives lost.” The monthly statement of the Comptroller of tbe Currency shows that the coinage executed at tbe mints of the United States during January, 1900, •mounted to $14,053,431, as follows: Gold, $11,513,000: silver. $2,364,161; minor coins, $174,270.

Red Cross nurses who worked during the Spanish-American war have appointed a committee to urge the passage of a bill by Congress to provide for the employment of women nurses in military hospitals of the army. Women are so employed now, but there is no law prb.Tiding for their qualification, or making their positions permanent. The United States and Great Britain, it was definitely learned, have reached an amicable agreement respecting the operations of the Clayton-Bplwer treaty as affecting'the right of construction and control by the United States of the proposed Nicaraguan canal. Great Britain agrees to a modification of the treaty by which it practically relinquishes any claims respecting a legal control of the Nicaraguan canal after it shall have been constructed. The result therefore is to eliminate that ft-ature of the treaty bearing on the subject of dual control and to. leave the United States free to construct, and thereafter control this great interoceanie waterway.