Governor Gage of California is said to have given recognition to labor organizations in the appointment of state officers to a greater extent than any of his predecessors have ever done. This is one of the cheering signs of the times and among these recognitions we are glad to note that Brother W. V. Stafford of Division 364 has been appointed by Governor Gage as member of the Board of Managers of the State Hospital at Napa. It is understood that this appointment is intended as a recognition of railroad employes in their organized capacity and as such it will be fully appreciated.

The Forum Publishing Company begs to announce that, beginning with the July number, The Forum will be published quarterly, instead of monthly, as heretofore. The general character of the magazine will be the same, and its high standard will be maintained, but its purposes will be more specifically those of a review and outlook. It is believed that by publishing quarterly a review of the world's events in every field, as well as to some extent an outlook based on the conditions presented, the essential features can be fully covered. 50 cents a copy. $2.00 a year. For sale by your newsdealer.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in annual session at Norfolk, Va., on May 28, elected officers as follows: Assistant grand chief engineer, A. B. Youngson; first grand engineer, T. S. Ingraham; third grand engineer, De Loss Everett. The terms of Grand Chief Arthur and Second Grand Engineer Salmons do not expire for two years. The insurance department elected as trustees to serve for two years M. R. Shay, Youngstown, O.; Peter Kilduff, Blue Island, Ill.; Fred A. Burgess, Louisville, Ky.; W. H. Plummer, Hornersville, N. Y.; M. W. Cadet, Sedalia, Mo. W. C. Gardner, former trustee, was elected vice-president of the department to succeed L. Zeigenfue.

On March 20th, 1902, engine 27 on passenger train on the F. W. & D. C. Ry., while running at a high rate of speed, broke side rod, injuring Fireman R. Jordan and Engineer J. H. Kelley, but did not break air pipe connection so as to apply brakes. Mr. Kelley recovering from the shock, saw the situation and climbed over top of broken cab on the running board and opened angle cock on front end of train pipe, thereby stopping the train. After stopping the train he discovered fireman in a dazed condition in cab and rescued him before serious injury from escaping steam. The good judgment and bravery displayed by Engineer Kelley is of high order, and is very commendable.

Brother Elmer E. Pilling of Division 114, author of the book, "Echoes from the Rail," which many members of the Order read, has in press another book entitled "Sidetracked, or The Confession of an Invalid." Brother Pilling has, for several years, been confined to his home in a helpless condition from locomotor ataxia and appeals to the members to patronize his work liberally as an encouragement to him and also as a means of assisting in his support. The book will be sold at the popular price of 25 cents per copy and orders accompanied by that amount, addressed to E. E. Pilling, Dennison, Ohio, will be attended to. The local press of Dennison speak complimentarily of the book and very highly of Brother Pilling.

Mount Rundel Division 420 was organized by the Grand Chief Conductor at Stellarton, N. S. on May 29th. This Division is the outpost of our Order on the east. It promises to be a healthy and good Division. Brother R. A. McDonald of Pictou, N. S. was chosen C. C. and Brother G. A. McKay of Stellarton, N. S., Secretary. A very enjoyable social hour was spent around a banquet table after organization. The Divisions in the Eastern Maratime Provinces were visited on this trip and a very enjoyable feature of the trip was an elaborate banquet given by Division 203 of Truro, which was largely attended by members of 203 and neighboring Divisions as well as by prominent citizens, members of Dominion and Provincial Parliaments, railway officials, representative members of sister organizations, etc. The evening was a most enjoyable one and it is pleasing to see the pleasant relations of good will which exist among the railway employes and between the railway employes, their officials and the business public in that territory.

A resident of Titusville, Pa., committed suicide a few days ago from a melancholy conviction that he was his own grandfather. Here is the singular letter that he left: "I married a widow who had a grown-up daughter. My father visited our house very often, fell in love with my stepdaughter and married her. So my father became my sonin-law and my stepdaughter my mother, because she was my father's wife. Some time afterward my wife had a son; he was my father's brother-in-law and my uncle, for he was the brother of my stepmother. My father's wife-that is, my stepdaughter-had also a son; he was, of course, my brother, and in the meantime my grandchild, for he was the son of my daughter. My wife was my grandmother, because she was my mother's mother. I was my wife's husband and grandchild at the same time. And as the husband of a person's grandmother is his grandfather, I was my own grandfather."-Ex.

A well known railway man and an officer in one of the brotherhoods stated this morning that an agent of the United Order of Railway Employes, which has no organizations in Indiana or Michigan, is in this part of the country working up the "time book" advertising scheme in the larger cities. He has just completed the work at Grand Rapids, where he was liberally patronized by the merchants, and will probably be in Fort Wayne in a few days. While the book the fellow puts out is a very creditable one, the merchant who places an advertisement in it does not get what he expects. He is led to believe that the U. O. R. E. is a great and mighty organization and that all railway men are members of it, when, in fact, so far as is known, there is not a single member in any of the cities in the states named. The United Order of Railway Employes originated on the Pacific coast shortly after the American Railway Union passed out of existence, and it is not only not recognized by the five great railway brotherhoods, but is considered by them a rival whose aim is the disruption of the brotherhoods.-Ft. Wayne Sentinel.

A young man recently appointed traveling passenger agent for the Milwaukee division of a certain big railway, who was starting out on a business trip. had taken a seat in the sleeping car and was explaining to a friend the duties and possibilities of his new position. "The secret of success in a business of this kind is to make your patrons appreciate what you do for them," said he. "It does not do to drop a man as soon as you have induced him to buy a ticket and then chase after new victims. Now, as an illustration, there are two foreigners forward in the smoking car who cannot speak English, and I am going with them to the station where they change cars and see that they get on the right train and have the accommodations they are entitled to. I have their tickets and told them to show my card to the conductor and refer him to me."

The conversation at this point was interrupted by the entrance of the conductor.

"By the way, conductor," he said, as he handed over his annual pass, together with the two tickets, "I suppose you found my two men up forward? Here are their tickets.'

"Well, I don't know," said the conductor. "I stopped the train at a flag station seven miles back nere and put off two fellows that couldn't talk United States, and when I asked for tickets, showed me a card with somebody's name on it and said that was their ticket."-Milwaukee Sentinel.

The illustrated special sporting section of The Sunday Chicago Record-Herald thoroughly deserves the attention of everyone interested in sporting news. It is always beautifully illustrated, and embraces four full pages, covering with the thoroughness that satisfies to the utmost the whole realm of sports. Base ball news, racing news, bowling news, cycling news, pugilistic news, golf news, yachting news-all the sporting newsis given with the degree of fullness and interest to be expected of the newspaper which combines the very complete facilities of those two great metropolitan newspapers, The Chicago Record and The Chicago Times-Herald. The sporting page of the daily issues is also exceptionally popular-a self evident fact to those who have noted the general vogue of The Chicago Record-Herald among sporting men.

In the movement for increase in size and weight of motive power, the Santa Fe leads. Following the installation of the greatest freight locomotive ever built it has just placed in service about forty speedy new passenger engines that take twelve-car trains over one and onehalf per cent grades with ease, and make schedule time. The engines weigh about 209,000 pounds and the tender about 112,000 tons additional. The tenders are constructed to carry ten tons of coal and six thousand gallons of water. The performance of these engines in the plains country is quite as remarkable as in the mountains. A special, consisting of thirteen Pullman cars, was recently taken from Chicago to Kansas City at an average speed exceeding thirty-three miles per hour. This included all stops and delays from any cause for a run of 458 miles accomplished in thirteen hours and thirty-nine minutes. The weight of the train was approximately six hundred and thirty tons. No attempt was made to establish a recordonly ordinary conditions prevailed. The time could have been clipped an hour without reaching the pulling limit.

Yankee methods and British workmen are still performing feats that startle the English public, who have hardly had time to close their mouths from wondering at the records made in brick laying at the Britian Westinghouse Company's works at Manchester, when they are called upon to admire the huge chimney stack of the generating station of the Mersey Railway Co. at Liverpool. Commenced about Christmas time, the stack, which is about 250 ft. in height, has been completed already, and stands as a record-breaker, as far as expedition in building is concerned. The work has

been carried out by the British Westinghouse Co., who have the contract for converting the Mersey Railway tunnel from steam to electric traction, and the work has been done by British labor under the direction of Messrs. J. Stewart & Co., famous for record-breaking time in the construction of the Manchester Works, the Galveston docks and the renowned grain elevator, "Kalumet K." From nearly every part of Liverpool the Mersey chimney, decorated with the American and British national flags, stands out plainly on the sky-line as the highest structure in that part of Chesire.

Cleaning up the island was as arduous as any part of the work. The city streets had been the receptacles for garbage and other refuse for centuries, making it necessary to dig down several feet in some places to find what had been the original paving. The public buildings had been neither cleaned nor in any way, cared for. The cesspools, located unde the flagging of the interior courts of the buildings, had remained untouched for years, causing the spread of yellow fever among the officers and troops. Yet in a comparatively short time the streets had been cleaned and repaved, the buildings repaired, cesspools cleaned and modern sanitary conveniences installed. An idea may be gained of the unsanitary condition existing when it is said that from under the custom house alone over 1,200 cubic yards of filth and several tons of fetid matter were removed. At Regla, opposite Havana, the large warehouses which had been used as barracks for the Spanish soldiers, were found to be filled with filth and vermin, a veritable bed of contagion and disease, and these are only two instances, out of a great number.

For hundreds of years yellow fever had existed in Havana. In the months of October, November and December, the yellow fever months, from 1890 to 1900, the smallest number of deaths, 52, occurred in 1898; the largest, 631, in 1896; while for the same period in 1901 no deaths have occurred from this disease, and the mortality from all diseases does not exceed that of Baltimore, or other cities in the United States. The streets have been repaved and a streetsweeping service put in operation. A system for the daily collection and disposition of garbage and refuse is in use, with frequent house to house inspections, to see that there is no violation of the sanitary laws. In the general improvement of the city the parks have been improved, some restored, and all fashioned after the park system of this country. Charles G. Phelps, in The World's Work.

In referring the second time to the banquet given by Division 203, in connection with the recent visit of the Grand Chief Conductor to that Division, the Colchester Sun of Truro, N. S., says:

"Much as we dislike continued stories, or the spreading of newspaper articles beyond their just limits, we make no apology for returning to this subject, as we believe the members of the O. R. C. had an object above and beyond the giving of a good reception to their chief, however legitimate that may have been. But we have reason to think that they were largely influenced by the legitimate and praiseworthy thought that no better opportunity could possibly arrive to make known and propound the grand principles on which their Order is founded, that of truth, justice and fair play to advance by all honorable and legitimate means the welfare of the members of the Order and those dependent on them.

But apart from the motives that may have actuated the members of the O. R. C. in getting up the very pleasant function, those who enjoyed it must have felt that away above and beyond the mere social aspect of the association, the proceedings and the sentiments uttered pointed to results that would be far reaching in their effect in the not distant future. We think it must have been apparent to all present that the O. R. C. had already accomplished much good; that the organization is acting and working along right lines; that were similar organizations as well and faithfully managed, as is this one, could not the questions that so frequently arise between employers and employes be more expeditiously settled than they are, and thus avoid strikes and misunderstandings-in short, does it not seem reasonable that it is along the lines so well indicated by the O. R. C. in their management of this society that the true solution of the capital and labor question will be found? Besides the evidence and experience of such a strong man as Mr. E. E. Clark, as heard at this gathering, we have the opinion of other strong men in our own railway circles, that these societies and their influences on the men, are working admirably. Messrs. H. V. Harris and J. T. Hallisey were decidedly much in earnest in their remarks the other night, and their opinion is worth much.'

The Railway Age hands down a decision in regard to the employment of spotters that is well worth space. It says:

"Among some of the objectionable practices that have in the past become

attached to railway operation is the employment of what are known as special agents, but who are described as "spotters" in the more expressive language of the employes. When this term is used, the passenger train service is supposed to be referred to, but the practice is by no means limited to that department. The system is open to two serious objections. From the character of the employment it follows that men of high class can not be secured to perform it; and that men of the character usually employed are impressed with the idea that they are expected to find something on which they can base a report of dishonesty or inefficiency. In the second place, the persons reported against have no opportunity to defend themselves, or if questioned, find themselves wholly unprepared at the moment to meet the charges brought against them; and the result is often a reduction in the service or a dismissal therefrom. It may be stated as a broad principle that the report of a special agent who knows that his identity will not be revealed is entitled to no more credence than would be given to an anonymous communication on the same subject. As a matter of fact, there is less reason for his report being true. The man who makes it is usually of low moral calibre, and believing that the duration of his employment is dependent upon his diligence in making adverse reports, he looks on the wrong side of things. Results, not reports, should be made the basis of any action looking to the dismissal of railroad employes. A division officer may be upon terms of the utmost familiarity with his men (which is not wise), but if through it, or, perhaps, in spite of it, he gets better service out of the men than another who is a martinet, he should be commended rather than blamed. President Lincoln recognized the truth of this principle when, upon the complaint that General Grant drank whiskey, he inquired what particular brand he used in order that he might get some it for other generals. Railroading, particularly on the operating side, has been reduced to such a science that the day of the special agent, if indeed, he ever had one, has gone by."

The biggest and most powerful locomotive in the world belongs to the Santa Fe.

There are other big things on the Santa Fe. The biggest canyon in the world is on the Santa Fe, in Arizona. The tracks of the Santa Fe would reach one-third the distance around the globe. They serve (with others) the two largest states in the Union-Texas and California. The new engine number 989 is,