AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1193, 11 January 1895, Page 38

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A GREAT POST OFFICE. There are now on the permanent establishment of the United Kingdom Post Offices 74,819 persons employed, of whom 10,908 are women, and in addition to these, 61,000 persons are more or less employed in Post Office work who are not on the permanent establishment. During the year more than £19,000,000 was remitted by means of money orders, exclusive of orders for the colonies and foreign countries. The new telegraphic money orders are increasing as they become better known to the public ; last year the increase was 33. per cent. The savings bank business shows a steady growth, the deposits being 9,838,000 in number and £24,700,000 in value, while £21,764,000 was withdrawn. At the present time the total num-

ber of depositors is 5,748,239, or one in seven of the population. The British telegraph service is carried on at an annual loss —tne deficit was .£473,000 last year ; but the total excess of Post Oflico receipts over expenditure is now nearly three millions. Mr Arnold Morley appends to his report a table which shows that the department is spending a larger proportion than ever in salaries and wages ; ten years ago salaries and wages amounted to not quite 49 per cent, of the whole expenditure; they now reach close upon 60 per cent. DOES ELECTROCUTION KILL? Governor Flower is willing to allow experts to make a test to ascertain whether a man killed in the electrical chair can be resuscitated. Ever since the adoption of the Electrical Execution Act by the State the Westinghouse people, whose dynamos are used, have declared that electricity was not the cause of death, but that death was assured by the holding of an autopsy directly after the body had been taken from tb.e electrical chair. No less an authority than Nicola Tesla, the famous electrician, contended that he could bring back to life a man killed in an electrical chair, provided the attempt was made immediately after execution. George Westinghouse has always asserted that electrical death was a shame, and that a New York commission, headed by Elbridge T. Gerry, had added the autopsy clause to the law to make it certain that the man was dead. Recently the agitation , of the subject has become prominent, and an appeal is to be made to the Governor to allow the next man condemned to be used as a subject to be experimented on. The Governor says he will grant permission to do this. If successful, the experiment will bring to life a new man who cannot be

executed, having once suffered the penalty of death. It will also prove that the State executioners have been the surgeons *who have held the autopsy rather than the electricians. AN IDEAL COLONY. The overwhelming defeat of the people's party in Kansas has decided Mrs Anna Diggs to abandon the political field, and she will henceforth devote her entire time and energy to the establishment and up-build-ing of a co-operative colony on the Potomac River, about 40 miles below Washington. Mrs Diggs originated the idea of a cooperative colony near Washington some time ago, and interested a large number of leading co-operative workers of the country in her enterprise. She is not willing now to make public the names of her associates, but says that among them are Hamlin Garland, of Boston, and Judge Frank Doster, of Kansas. She says that a number of the best-known writers in Boston have taken an active interest in the scheme, and that enough has already been accomplished to ensure its success. An option has been obtained on an ideal location on the banks of the Potomac. It embraces between 600 and 700 acres of choice land, well wooded, and supplied with splendid water power, to be utilised in manufacturing purposes. The colony will be started early next spring with about 40 families. COPENHAGEN NOW A FREE PORT. , Copenhagen was declared a free port on 9th November, and tonnage dues were abolished. Port dues have been reduced one-half and converted into imports upon merchandise, not applicable to goods in transit. The opening of the port of Copenhagen as a port of entry marks the inauguration of an aggressive commercial policy for Denmark by which the Government is to greatly increase its commercial importance. Count

de Reventlow, the Danish Minister, says that all tonnage dues upon vessels entering the harbour, which amounts to a considerable tax on them, are removed and a nominal percentage charge imposed as a j substitute. Extensive warehouse accommodations are provided, which enable shippers , to store goods at small cost for reshipment and distribution among the other ] ports of the Baltic without paying duty. The system is relied upon to make Copenhagen the commercial centre of the j Baltic, and to increase its incidental busi- | ness by making it the central depot for \ the commerce of Russia, Germany, England, the United States, and other Powers whose vessels pass through the Baltic, and the station for Transatlantic shippers to leave their cargoes for. distribution to other points. Improved machinery for unloading and loading cargoes is provided, and the works of the harbour, which is one of the finest in the world because of the absence of tides, have been greatly improved. The system is designed to offset in a measure the advantages that Germany expects to realise from the ship canal now building across the peninsula from the Baltic to the North Sea, and to give to Denmark a share of the business from the canal. . The United States Minister at Copenhagen has declared, in interviews given to the press of Denmark, that the new arrangement will increase the commerce between that country and America.