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en, linen, and other textile goods, £ E. 1,150,125; timber, £ E. 439,482; tobacco, £ E. 424,177; coal, £ E. 404,847; apparel and hosiery, £E. 356,903; iron and steel goods, £ E. 342,907; wheat and flour, £ E. 337,815; wine, beer, and spirits, £ E. 309,697; coffee, E. 293,418; petroleum and oils, £ E. 264,364; fruits, fresh and preserved, £ E. 242,010; animals, £ E. 187,696; machinery, £ E. 152,065; rice, £ E. 124,525. Navigation. The number of vessels entered at the port of Alexandria during 1893 was 2,271, of 2,033,060 tons; cleared, 2,233, of 2,025,433 tons. Of the vessels entered, 596, of 864,288 tons, were British; 122, of 273.831 tons, French; 934, of 240,878 tons, Turkish; 132, of 200,533 tons, Italian; 141, of 194,398 tons, Austrian; 78, of 138,348 tons, Russian; 39, of 45,507 tons, Norwegian and Swedish: 26, of 36,749 tons, German; 157, of 25,869 tons, Greek; and 46, of 12,659 tons, of other nationalities. The arrivals declared at Damietta and Rosetta and at Port Said and Suez were 6,988, of 7,922,652 tons, and the clearances were 7,053 in number; tonnage, 7,919,634.

Communications.-The railroads in 1894 had a total length of 1,255 miles. During 1893 there were 9,301,081 passengers transported, and 2,113,002 metric tons of freight; the receipts were £ E. 1,660,000 and expenses £ E. 717,880. The railroad through the Nile valley, which has its present terminus at Keneh, is being continued to Assouan, and will be completed in 1897, the entire distance from Alexandria to the First Cataract being over 700 miles. The length of the Government telegraphs in the beginning of 1893 was 1,922 miles, with 6,763 miles of wire. The number of internal messages in 1892 was 1,722,000.

The post office in 1893 carried 9,570,000 internal and 3,950,600 international letters and postal cards, and 3,580,000 newspapers, etc., in the internal and 2,169,400 in the international service.

Suez Canal. The number of vessels that passed through the canal in 1893 was 3,341, of 10,753,798 tons, paying in tolls £2,826,694 sterling. The number of passengers was 180,432. Of the vessels, 2,405, of 7,977,728 gross tons, were British; 272, of 798,929 tons, German; 190, of 702,634 tons, French; 178, of 443,147 tons, Dutch; 71, of 251,468 tons, Austrian; 67, of 183,492 tons, Italian; 50, of 119,616 tons, Norwegian; 29, of 100,706 tons, Spanish; 24, of 82,767 tons, Russian; 34, of 55,407 tons. Turkish; 10, of 17,398 tons, Portuguese; 5, of 7,466 tons, Egyptian; 3, of 6,526 tons, American; 1, of 2,847 tons, Japanese; 1, of 2,546 tons, Belgian. The net profits for 1893 were 40,615,536 francs. The share and loan capital on Jan. 1, 1894, amounted to 452,147,402 francs, not including the 100,000 founders' shares, which receive 10 per cent. of the surplus profits over and above 5 per cent. interest on the shares, and in 1892 did receive 4,061,553 francs.

In 1894 the gross receipts amounted to 76,951,000 francs and the net profits to 41,121,000 francs. During the year 3,352 ships passed through the canal, having an aggregate burden of 8,039.175 tons. The number of passengers was 166.003. There were 45 passages made by 11 ships carrying petroleum in bulk. The aver

age time of transit was nineteen hours, fifty-five minutes, against twenty hours, forty-five minutes in 1893.

Political Affairs.-After securing in the Nubar ministry a subservient instrument for all his designs, Lord Cromer made no pretense of considering the Khedive's wishes or susceptibilities or of conciliating native opinion. The failure of most of the British experiments in reforming the administration had produced such a settled antipathy to the English that they no longer strove to reconcile the people to their rule. J. F. Gorst, on being appointed adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, immediately prepared a project for the regulation of local government that deprived the village sheiks of real authority and transformed the omdehs into agents of the English policy. The Legislative Council adjourned so as to avoid discussing this unpopular measure.

Manifestations of popular discontent were not unwelcome to the British guardians, because such exhibitions of hostile feeling made it appear necessary for the army of occupation to remain and impossible for Egypt to govern itself without danger to the rights and property of Europeans. The attitude of the common people toward the British became dangerously aggressive and defiant early in 1895. A mob in Alexandria assaulted some marines of the war ship "Scout" on Feb. 8. For this 7 natives were sentenced to the extreme punishment allowed by the law. Sir John Scott, the judicial adviser of the Government, immediately drew up a new law making the penalty more severe for attacks by bands upon Europeans. Another decree created a new tribunal with power to deal summarily with native offenses against English officers, soldiers, or sailors. This court is armed with powers of life and death and is independent of all restrictions of the code. It will pronounce immediate judgment, from which there is no appeal, but will only meet upon the demand of the general commanding the British army of occupation. Since punishments have become frequent and been rendered more severe for exhibitions of the popular dislike for the British and condemnations more numerous for all manner of offenses, the natives often feel the substitution of imprisonment for the old practice of flogging to be a hardship, and even the British officials sometimes regretted having introduced this humanitarian reform. Some men who hooted at an English military funeral procession were sentenced to a year's imprisonment. Penalties of that kind not only add greatly to the cost of prison administration, but deprive families of the means of subsistence.

The Legislative Council, which had adjourned till April, was summoned peremptorily on Feb. 22 to act upon the project for the reorganization of the internal administration and Sir John Scott's measure for preventing mob attacks upon Europeans. Mr. Gorst's project was adopted with amendments securing greater independence of the village authorities from the provincial as well as from the central executive. The omdeh is the head man of the village and the sheiks are his deputies. Each sheik has authority over a part of the inhabitants in each village, they having the right to choose under

what sheik they wish to be. The sheik is responsible to the omdeh for the behavior of his followers, and the omdeh is responsible to the Government for all that happens in the village. Commissions were appointed under the new law to investigate the village officials throughout Egypt, remove incompetent and dishonest sheiks and omdehs, and reorganize the whole local administration. These commissions abolished 236 villages, and in 3,572 that were preserved they dismissed 714 omdehs and 1,947 sheiks and, besides replacing the latter, appointed 2,968 additional sheiks.

The English authorities gave offense to the Khedive and to the Egyptian public by refusing the last request of Ismail Pasha, the moribund ex-Khedive, that he might come home to Egypt to die.

M. Legrelle, the Procurator-General, was displaced in March after twelve years of service in consequence of irreconcilable differences with Sir John Scott, who desires to supplant the French code and rules of procedure and to restrict the functions of the parquet to those of a public prosecutor. A native lawyer was appointed to the office and more summary forms of procedure were introduced. Sir John Scott formulated new regulations making the parquet subject to the inspection of the committee of judicial surveillance, directing the mudirs to investigate crimes, depriving the parquet of the right to instruct the criminal tribunals and that of prosecuting officials without orders from the Ministry of Justice, and transferring to it all the functions previously discharged by the juges d'instruction.

Ismail Bey Sabry, vice-president of the native court of appeals, was appointed procurator-general, and another native jurist, Zewar Bey, was made advocate-general. The Legislative Council after closing its session was for the second time ordered to reassemble in order that a measure for the rapid disposal of criminal cases should be legalized. Other changes in the administration of the criminal laws were important. Not only were the courts placed under English inspection, but English inspectors under the new adviser to the Ministry of the Interior guided the police administration in all the provinces, the central police bureau in Cairo being abolished and the provincial police placed under the mudirs. A ticket-of-leave system, like that of England, has been adopted for Egyptian prisons. For juvenile offenders reformatories have been established. The natives complained that the sure and stable administration of justice under the mixed codes, based upon the laws and procedure accepted in France, Italy, Belgium, and other European states, was disorganized, first by the institution in 1891 of the judicial committee of control having power to censure and to procure the removal of judges of the native tribunals, and now still further by the enforced retirement of the procurator-general and by the suppression of all independence of the officials of the judicial order acting as investigators and prosecutors of crime and the transfer of their powers to the provincial prefects, leaving them merely the task of supporting as advocates the prosecutions which the administrative officials may arbitrarily ordain,

without having to observe any of the laws guaranteeing the liberty and honor of citizens. In a petition to the French Chamber a large number of Egyptians claimed the protection of the public law of Europe against the adjudication by the disorganized native tribunals of questions of real property and of offenses against police regulations, which under the judicial reform of 1875, guaranteed by treaty and binding till Feb., 1899, are subject to the jurisdiction of the mixed tribunals. Threatened with the interference of the administration with the course of justice in the native tribunals since prosecutions have been transferred from independent procurators into the hands of mudirs and subprefects, they preferred to have cases decided according to the fixed principles of the European civil law by the reform courts of mixed jurisdiction. An Egyptian committee was organized in France to agitate in favor of a common resolution of the great powers to guarantee the neutrality of Egypt and the entire Nile basin, and thus afford the British Government an honorable ground for the evacuation of Egypt, which was now admittedly of no strategic value to England. The Suez Canal, open in time of peace, but now at the mercy of any event in war, should be preserved as a highway of commerce by neutralization. The French merchants in Egypt petitioned the French Chamber to record a protest against the prohibition of all trade between Egypt and the Soudan that has been maintained since the British occupation, although the Soudanese try to get their produce into Egypt and the Egyptians to circumvent the embargo and renew the long interrupted commercial intercourse with the Soudan.

The English administrators have desired to apply the reserves accumulated in the treasury, amounting to £4,230,000, to administrative reforms, public works, and the relief of taxation, but this money belonged to the bondholders under an international engagement which the French Government refused to cancel. For the relief of agricultural distress caused by the sudden fall of 25 per cent. in the value of the cotton crop and the depression in the prices of sugar and cereals, the Government initiated a general reassessment of tax values in accordance with present rents in order to equalize the incidence of the land tax. The new classification makes the large proprietors pay more taxes and lightens the burden resting upon the small landowners. The aggregate revenue of £4,900,000 sterling from 5,436,000 acres of cultivated land was not to be increased nor the maximum rate of 32s. 5d. an acre to be exceeded. The collection of some of the taxes had been postponed on account of the low price of cotton. The Commission of the Public Debt was disposed at first to object to the guarantee of 34 per cent. interest on £365,000 of bonds for the Keneh-Assouan Railway: the bonds and the contract were then taken by the Berlin Handelsgesellschaft. The Council of Ministers decided to bring the Wakfs under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance by directing the accounts of these religious and charitable endowments to be audited by that department. The Legislative Council, objecting to such intervention in Mohammedan matters, proposed that the committee of Wakfs should

submit its accounts direct to the Khedive. Conscription for the army was extended to Cairo, Alexandria, and the other towns hitherto exempted by custom. This measure is expected to increase the receipts of the Ministry of War by a considerable sum that citizens of the municipalities will pay for exemption from military service. The price for exemption has been reduced to £ E. 20. This purchases exemption from the liability to serve, and must be paid before the drawing. Only 2 per cent. of the persons summoned have to join the colors, yet so intense is the aversion to military service that even the fellaheen who can pay the tax do so rather than run the chance of conscription.

The judicial adviser framed a new antislavery convention. Trial by court-martial is maintained at Suakin and in the frontier province. The buyer of slaves is made distinctly liable to punishment no less than the seller, and a new court is created for the purpose of trying cases in the districts not under martial law, consisting of 5 judges of the native court of appeal, of whom 2 shall be Europeans. The decisions of this court are final.

The recalcitrant attitude of the young Khedive and his patriotic friends toward the AngloIndian methods employed for the subjugation of Egypt by its present masters is reflected in recent transactions of the Legislative Council. This body made no attempt to exercise its limited authority so long as the Egyptian Government followed obediently the dictation of the English advisers. When Riaz Pasha at length rebelled the Council took courage, and by its strictures on the budget of 1894 Sir Elwin Palmer, the financial adviser, attempted to rebut the statement that the private indebtedness of the landowners had risen from £ E. 12,000,000 in 1881 to £ E. 20,000,000 in 1891 by a compilation of the mortgages recorded in the courts showing that their sum is only £ E. 7,333,300 and that the number of acres mortgaged is 395.600, not 1,300,000. When Ali Pasha Sherif, who was convicted of a violation of the antislavery law, resigned the presidency of the Legislative Council, Omer Pasha Loutfi was elected his successor. In the budget report for 1895 the Council called upon the Government to reduce the land tax by £1,000,000 and save the people of Egypt, who are being crushed under an everincreasing load of indebtedness, from sinking into the state of mere hired laborers on the land which they own, but of which they are rapidly being dispossessed.

In a commercial convention with Greece, signed March 21, permission was given to import Greek tobacco, which hitherto has been prohibited, the capitulations being relaxed so that Egyptian officers can search Greek vessels and domiciles for smuggled goods.

The Soudan.-The Khalifa Abdullah, who succeeded the Mahdi Mohammed Achmet as ruler of the empire which the latter welded out of the Soudanese provinces of Egypt, preserves the strict Mohammedan character of the state, but no longer aims to carry out the religious mission of conquest, for he has great difficulty in retaining his authority over the tribes that he pretends to rule. The Khalifa, who was once lieutenant of the Mahdi, and commander of the Bag

gara military force that established and maintained his empire, now represents the domination of that Arab tribe over the mixed negro and Arab races, who feel the rule of the Baggaras to be hard, but not so oppressive and rapacious as was that of the Egyptians. The country is less prosperous than it was under Egyptian rule, for the Khalifa has not known how to found a civil government that will be respected, and all outside commerce has been shut off, except the clandestine trade in slaves. The Soudanese dervishes formerly raided the region of the Welle and the country between the Nile and the Congo. The supply of slaves is now nearly stopped by the military operations of the Congo State, which, under an agreement with Great Britain, has extended its outposts to the Nile. The diminished power of the Khalifa might be overthrown, the slave trade in this region crushed out, and the Soudan again opened to commerce by sending a small European military force into the country. This has not been done, owing to political complications. Great Britain claims the whole Nile basin as its sphere of influence, irrespective of its engagements to withdraw from Egypt as soon as that country is able to govern itself, and has persistently refused to allow the Egyptian Government to attempt to reconquer the provinces which it evacuated at the dictation of the English. The French Government refuses to recognize the claims of Great Britain in the Nile basin, but these have been recognized by the German, Italian, and Congo governments. The French contend that all the countries that were formerly held by Egypt under the suzerainty of Turkey are still Egyptian in international law, and a part of the Turkish Empire. The British were alarmed in 1895 lest French expeditions from the Congo and the Niger should penetrate into the Bahr-el-Gazel province and occupy it as guardians of the rights of the Sultan. The recent activity of the French in the Ubangi country influenced the British Government to send expeditions to Lake Albert and the upper Nile, and to undertake the construction of the Uganda Railroad.

Nearly all the Europeans, former officials of the Egyptian Government and missionaries, who were held in captivity by the Khalifa, have escaped and returned to Europe. Father Bonomi got away in 1885; Father Ohrwalder, with 2 Italian nuns, in 1891; Father Rossignoli in November, 1894; and, finally, Slatin Bey, the last of Gen. Gordon's lieutenants, in February, 1895. The Europeans were latterly allowed to earn their living by working at whatever handicrafts they knew in Omdurman. Slatin Bey was at times kept in prison, loaded with chains; at other times was treated with distinction and called into counsel by the Khalifa. He made eight attempts to escape before his wardens finally relaxed their vigilance and suffered him to depart. When the Austrian officer left, the Khalifa had 12,000 fighting dervishes, under Osman Digma, encamped on the Atbara river, threatening the Italians at Kassala. His military power was still unbroken, the Baggaras, of whom he is one, remaining faithful, and his political and religious power at Omdurman and throughout the southern provinces was still great, but was waning.

ELKS, BENEVOLENT AND PROTECTIVE ORDER OF, a charitable and benevolent organization founded in New York city in 1868. The object of the order is to aid and protect its members and their families, and to promote friendship and social intercourse. In the beginning it was composed of a few gentlemen of the theatrical profession, drawn together for social intercourse. It has now developed into a powerful organization of 30,000 members, with lodges in more than 250 cities of the United States. While members of the theatrical profession are numerous and prominent in the order, yet its rolls contain the names of many in other professions and occupations. Only one lodge is permitted in any town or city. This is to prevent the rivalry, conflict, and jealousy that sometimes embarrass secret societies. The initiation fee varies from $15 to $100 in lodges in the various cities. The average dues are $6 a year. The order is not beneficial, but it is claimed to expend more in unostentatious charity than any other in the world. The amount averages $10 a week to those who are in distress, but the sum is usually limited by the needs of the sufferer. There are no ranks, titles, or emoluments in the order. All Elks have equal rights under their laws. To join the order of Elks, the applicant must be a man of good health, must be twenty-one years of age, must believe in a Supreme Being, must be a citizen of the United States, and must have some honorable occupation or visible means of support. Another body, which the Grand Lodge, at its session in Jamestown, N. Y., declared to be "unauthorized, illegal, and revolutionary," held its convention at Atlantic City in 1894; but the two wings of the order are now practically united.

ENGINEERING. Ship Canals.-On June 21 the Emperor of Germany, attended by an immense fleet of war ships representing all the maritime nations of the world, officially opened the North Sea and Baltic Ship Canal. Since first the nations of northern Europe began to build ships, study navigation, and realize the importance of short cuts by water from sea to sea the desirability of a canal across the base of the Danish peninsula has been obvious. A beginning was made in 1398, and a narrow canal was made, following natural watercourses and serving for the passage of small craft. This was in use until 1784, when the Eider Canal was opened from a point near the eastern end of the present canal to Rendsburg (22 miles), the remainder of the distance being by way of Eider river to the North Sea. This canal was used annually by about 4,000 vessels, but the 6 locks carried only 10 feet of water, so that vessels of any considerable size were still obliged to make the dangerous passage around Denmark. On the conclusion of the Schleswig-Holstein complication, in 1865, Bismarck, foreseeing the coming necessities of commerce and of war, secured a concession of land from the principality sufficient for the construction of such a canal as has now been completed. The attainment of German unity a few years later further emphasized the necessity of such a canal, and in 1887 Kaiser Wilhelm I officially began the work. The canal as completed is a little more than 61 miles long, and, for the easterly part of

its course, follows the line of the old Eider Canal, then bending southward till it enters the lower Elbe where there is a navigable depth of about 40 feet. Theoretically, the whole canal is at the Baltic-Sea level, which is practically unaffected by the tides; but the rise and fall of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe averages about 20 (1) feet, so that a system of tidal locks and gates has been established at Brunsbüttel, where the canal proper debouches into the river. At Holteneau, the Baltic terminus, storm gates only are required, which will be closed whenever necessary, because of violent gales from the east. This occurs, according to observations, on an average of twenty-five days in a year, but, even when it is necessary to keep the gates closed from hour to hour, they can be opened for intervals of a few minutes, sufficient to pass vessels into the canal. The tidal locks at Brunsbüttel, on the contrary, will be habitually kept closed, except during three hours of the ebb tide. These locks are constructed like ordinary canal locks, and vessels can be passed through them at any time, subject to the ordinary delays. A sheltered basin is formed by two moles extending into the river, between which vessels may await their turn for the locks; this basin is 328 feet wide by 1,812 feet long. Then come the parallel double locks, each 82 by 492 feet between sills and 30 feet deep. These will pass all save the very largest war ships at any stage of the tide, and of course ships of any size whatever can pass during the hours of slack water, when the gates are left open altogether. It is estimated that 4 steamers or 9 sailing vessels of ordinary dimensions can be locked through at once. Inside the locks is an inner harbor 656 by 1,640 feet for vessels bound westward that have come through the canal and await their turn to get to sea. The general width of the canal proper is 197 feet at the water surface and 72 feet at the bottom, with a depth of 29 feet 6 inches. Ordinarily, merchant vessels going in opposite directions can pass one another anywhere; but with an eye to future increase of tonnage and to existing men-of-war, there are at convenient points along the route 6 basins 328 feet wide.

The locks at Holteneau are similarly provided with outer and inner harbors or basins. Four railroad bridges cross the canal, two of whichat Brunthal and Levensau-are fixed bridges, and two at Rendsburg and Brunsbüttel are swinging draws. The fixed bridges are 137 feet above the water, so that by sending down their royal masts, the loftiest-sparred vessels can pass. The drawbridges are arranged in pairs, duplicated-that is, at some distance apart-so that if one of them is closed to railroad traffic by the passage of vessels the other one can, in most cases, be available. Provision is also made for foot and carriage traffic. The length of the swinging sections of these bridges is 328 feet. longer, it is claimed, than any other similar structure in Europe. In this country, where such bridges have been longer in use, there are several of greater length. All the machinery of locks and bridges is operated by hydraulic power.

In the main, the line of the old Eider Canal has been followed for the easterly section, but

fourth term of the proposition is indefinitely increased by the unknown dangers of a North Sea voyage.

curves have been straightened and certain natural obstructions have been overcome that were too much for the resources of the earlier engineers. One interesting feature was the treatment of Flemhuder lake, an expanse of the river Elbe, which lay close to the line of the new canal, but at 23 feet higher level. The very considerable pressure of water at that height made it an unsafe neighbor. Accordingly, the lake was drained into the canal until the levels were identical. This exposed a large tract of lake bottom, and residents along the former shores of the lake protested against losing their water supply. Accordingly, a 'ring canal" was built, retaining the border of the lake at its old level, while the main body of water was deflected into the ship canal, the current of the river serving to increase that of the canal so that the terminal locks at Brunsbüttel are kept reasonably clear of silt. The lake, too, is still deep enough to serve as a harbor.

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Elsewhere extensive marshes of very difficult nature had to be overcome. Some of these consisted of semiliquid mud, perhaps with a light coating of turf on top; others were bogs, and still others quicksands. Altogether, a section of the canal several miles in extent had to be constructed practically upon an artificial foundation. The method pursued was to construct temporary crib work strong enough to bear inoderate car loads of sand, and in this way parallel dikes of sand on each side of the axis of the canal were pushed out into the marshes until a sufficiently stable foundation was obtained between the dikes for masonry and concrete. In a distance of 5 miles 64,000,000 cubic feet of sand were thus deposited, and the result seems to have been satisfactory. In round numbers, the total cost of the canal and its belongings was: Brunsbüttel locks, $4,000,000; Holteneau locks, $3.500,000; other construction, bridges, etc., $31,500,000; total, $39,000,000.

The interest of Germany in this great engineering enterprise is both commercial and military, though, in the larger sense, the military depends ultimately upon the commercial. It is estimated by Herr Augustus Sartori, President of the Kiel Chamber of Commerce, that the annual registration of vessels voyaging between the Baltic and the North Sea is about 18,500,000 tons, and he believes that 11,700,000 tons of this will pass through the canal rather than make the dangerous and intricate passage around the Danish peninsula. Elaborate tables have been made, showing the saving in time and distance between the various North Sea ports, but perhaps the most graphic way of setting forth the advantages is by considering the dimensions of Denmark. Given 61 miles, the length of the canal, and 600 miles of coast that must be circumnavigated in making the outside passage, we have the proportion: As 61 is to 600, so is the trip by canal to that by sea. But the

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The Sault Ste. Marie Canal.-On June 12 this important Canadian work connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron was opened for commerce. The completion of this work gives Canada unbroken navigation from the head of Lake Superior and from all its vast extent of northern coastline 2,384 miles to the Atlantic Ocean, a privilege that she has not enjoyed since the War of 1812. As soon as the northern wilderness began to be explored by Canadian adventurers it became evident that some means must be established of facilitating transportation between Lake Superior and the lower lake system. In 1798 a beginning was made, and a canal was finished ten years later across St. Mary's island, connecting the two lakes, and ample for all purposes of navigation at that early day. This was originally undertaken by one of the Northwestern fur companies, but the property was eventually transferred to the Hudson Bay Company. The canal was 300 feet long and 45 feet wide, and with a lock 38 feet long and 9 feet wide, which seems ridiculously small in comparison with the requirements for lake navigation at the present day. Early in the War of 1812 a company of 150 American volunteers, led by Major Holmes, crossed the strait and destroyed the canal so effectually that it never was rebuilt. The construction of a canal on the American side was begun shortly afterward, and pushed rapidly to completion. (For a history of this canal and its improvements, see "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1889, page 744.) As this was made available by international treaty for the uses of