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the south and west, the Pacific Ocean. The territory of the republic comprises an area of 21,490 square miles; and the population is estimated at 185,000, of whom some 5,000 are civilized and 10,000 uncivilized Indians.

The President (provisional) of the Republic is Dr. Vicente Herrera. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is Señor Rafael Machado; and the Minister of Public Works, Señor D. Saturnino Lizano. (No definite returns of the complete formation of the new cabinet have been received up to the end of December, 1876.) The following tables exhibit the national revenne and expenditure for the fiscal year ending April 30, 1876:

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was made toward the completion of the Atlantic division of the railway; but several interruptions were caused in the work by lack of funds.

The line of telegraph across the republic, from Puntarenas to Limon, was nearly completed.

Señor Aniseto Ezquivel, duly elected President of the Republic of Costa Rica, was inaugurated in office on May 8, 1876; but early in August following a revolution broke out, by which he was overthrown, Dr. Vicente Herrera having been appointed as provisional President. The movement appears to have been of a purely military character. The pronunciamientos were made at San José and Alajuela, by General Quiroz and his brother, both partisans of General Guardia, Ezquivel's predecessor. It was presumed that Guardia, at the time absent in a neighboring republic, would soon return to resume his position at the head of the Government.

The following extract from a public correspondent's letter, dated December 13, 1876, will serve as a fair summary of the situation of affairs in Costa Rica at that time:

Coffee-picking in the interior had been suspended on account of rains. The planters had held a meeting, at which they decided that, if they could not get the prices they thought just, they would ship on their own

account to whatever market suited them best.

Politically, matters in Costa Rica are in a most deplorable condition. General Guardia has again gone up the coast, accompanied by a batch of Costa-Rican politicians, intended to lend significance to his mission, it is generally understood, for the purpose of obtaining the assistance of Guatemala and Salvador in making war against Nicaragua. Guardia is not in odor of sanctity in either Guatemala or San Salvador, nor is it probable that, even with the influence of his political companions, he will succeed in inducing either to assist him. An embargo has been laid upon all communication with Nicaragua. No mails are received and no freight is shipped or entered. Sugar and cheese that came down by last steamer to Puntarenas lie there rotting in the heat, and are not permitted to pass the custom-house. Letters from Nicaragua bearing the postal stamp of that republic are retained, and persons wishing to correspond with Nicaragua must intrust their letters to private hands, or send them to Salvador to have them forwarded from there. Steamers get no clearance for Nicaraguan ports, and when they enter Puntarenas on the down-trip they are received as coming from Salvador.

This hostility against Nicaragua, it is generally understood, is wholly a matter of pecuniary interest on the part of Guardia. It is only a few weeks since Nicaragua abolished the state of war in which that republic had been for months previous, and reëstablished constitutional government.

COTTON. According to the statement of the New York Commercial and Financial Chronicle, for the year ending August 31, 1876, the cotton-crop of the United States reached 4,669,288 bales, while the exports were 3,252,994 bales, and the spinners' takings 1,356,598 bales, leaving a stock on hand, at the close of the year, of 120,380 bales. The gross weight of the crop was 2,201,410,024 pounds, the average weight of the bales being 471.46 pounds The production by States was as follows:

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Stock, October 1st.

Import.

DESCRIPTIONS.

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1875.

1874.

1875-6. 1874-5. 1875-6. 1874-15. 1875-6. 1874-15. 1875-'6. 1874-'5.

1876. 1875.

1875-6. 1874-5. 1875-6. 1874-5.

818,000 228,000 2,042,200 1,830,000 108,690 134,000 1,933,510 1,696,000 2,251,510 1,924,000 303,190 89,000 189,000 808,520 447,000 12,000 86,000 296,520 411,000 885,520 550,000 147,680 62,000 44,000 804,590 272,000 9,870 9,000 295,220 263,000 357,220 807,000 58,980 2,000 2,000 400 8,000 280 2,000 123 1000 2,120 8,000 380 17,000 81,000 68,890 110,000 13,570 28,000 55,320 82,000 20,600 72,320 113,000

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823,000 897,000 810,740 1,049,000 442,840 455,000 867,900 594,000 690,900 991,000 211,450 323,000 479,150 668,000

9,220

12,846

811,000 841,000 8,585,840 3,711,000 586,750 664,000 2,948,590 3,047,000 3,759,590 3,888,000 742,280 811,000 3,017,810 8,077,000 58,025

59,178

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DESCRIPTIONS.

Direct.

Indirect.

Total.

Total 52 Weeks.

Per Week.

1875.

1874.

1875-6. 1874-5. 1875-6. 1874-5. 1875-6. 1874-5. 1875-'6. 1874-5.

1876.

1875.

1575-6. 1874-5. 1875-6, 1874-15.

178 000 202,000 1,164,180 823,000 108,690 134,000 1,272,870 957,000 1,450,870 1,159,000 266,640 178,000 1,184,280 981,000 22,778 18,865 18,000 21,000 93,620 115,000 12,000 86,000 105,620 151,000 123,620 172,000 14,420 18,000 109,200 154,000 2,100 2,963 8,000 4,000 159,480 75,000 9,370 168,850 84,000 171,850 88,000 6,000 8,000 165,850 85,000 8,190 9,000 25,000 18,000 106,830 91,000 280 107,110 93,000 132,110 106,000 20,640 25,000 111,470 81,000 2,143 2,000 26,000 81,000 44,300 60,000 18,570 28,000 57,870 88,000 83,870 119,000, 17,010 26,000 66,860 93,000 1,286 165,000 162,000 408,820 495,000 442,840 455,000 851,660 950,000 1,016,660 1,112,000, 101,100 165,000 915,560 947,000 17,607

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415,000 483,000 1,977,230 1,659,000 586,750 664,000 2,568,980 2,328,000 2,978,980 2,756,000 425,810 415,000 2,558,170 2,341,000 49,099

45,019

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CREMATION. Cremation, or the burning of the dead, has been practised among many nations, and from very early times. The relics of the Bronze age in Great Britain and Denmark show that it was usual in that period, and its prevalence among the ancient Britons is known from history. It was practised from a very ancient date among several other Western nations, and among the people of Eastern Asia. It was general among the ancient Greeks, and must have been adopted by them at a very remote period. Numerous instances of cremation are described in Homer's poems and in Virgil's "Eneid," as occurring about the time of the Trojan War. Cremation was borrowed by the Romans from the Greeks, and was not generally practised among them till toward the end of the republic. The custom gradually went into disuse under the empire, and appears to have been abandoned about the end of the fourth century. There is no record that it was ever practised by any Christian nation. Cremation still prevails among many of the nations of Eastern Asia. In India, until recently, the living widow was burned upon the pyre with the body of her deceased husband. Cremation, with the ancient Greeks and Romans, was performed upon a pile of wood, or funeral-pyre, built in the form of an altar in the open air, and with elaborate ceremonies, and the offering of gifts and sacrifices, strong perfumes being added to neutralize the odors. After the process was completed, the ashes were gathered up and carefully deposited in urns. A proposal was made during the French Revolution to revive the practice, but it was never adopted.

Within a few years new attempts have been made to commend cremation. Several plans have been devised for consuming corpses in furnaces specially made for the purpose, or in close retorts. Prof. H. C. Richter described one in the Gartenlaube of Leipsic, in 1856. More recently Polli and Clericetti invented an apparatus, by means of which the body of Baron von Keller was burned at Milan. Processes suggested by Friedrich Siemens and Prof. Reclam, of Breslau, have been tested experimentally with satisfactory results. Dr. L. Brunetti, Professor of Pathology in the University of Padua, exhibited, at the Vienna Exposition of 1873, the residue from bodies and parts of bodies on which he had practised cremation by various methods. He had found, by his latest experiments, that the whole process of incineration of an adult human body occupied three and a half hours. The resultant ashes and bone-earth weighed 1.70 kilogramme, or about three pounds and threequarters avoirdupois. The quantity of wood required to insure a perfect process was about one hundred and fifty pounds, and cost one florin and twenty kreutzers, or about two shillings and fourpence English. Other apparatus have been invented by William Siemens and Engineer Steinmann, of Leipsic.

The attention of the English and American people was directed to cremation by means of an article advocating it, published by Sir Henry Thompson, in the Contemporary Review for January, 1877. This writer argued in favor of burning in preference to burial on grounds of utility and economy, and of sentimert. He held it to be desirable to expedite the decomposing process of Nature, and render it inoffensive, and to return speedily the elements into which the body is resolved to their destined function of furnishing food to plants. These processes, he represented, are retarded by burial; the ground is made noxious during the process of decomposition, wells are liable to be poisoned, and the health, particularly of crowded districts, is endangered. He referred to the economical aspect of the question in the light of the value of the organic remains, as manure. All of this, he held, was lost to agriculture for an unreasonably long period by the present method of disposing of dead bodies. On the other hand, by cremation in a properly-constructed furnace, the gases of the body would be driven off without offensive odor, and would ere night be consumed by plants and trees, while the mineral constituents-the bones and ashes-would remain in a crucible, and could be preserved in a funeral urn, or scattered in the fields. No scents or balsams would be required, as in the ancient open-air burnings, to neutralize odors. garding sentiment, Sir Henry referred to the repulsive appearance assumed by bodies during decay, and to the horrors of being buried alive, both of which would be avoided by a thoroughly-conducted process of burning. assumed that cremation is as susceptible as burial of association with religious funeral rites, that it affords escape from unpleasant ceremonials connected with burial, and equally permits the preservation of concrete remains and the erection of a shrine of affection. The body of Lady Dilke, an English woman, was burned in Germany a few months after Sir Henry Thompson's article appeared.

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In Holland a number of societies for the promotion of cremation have been organized into an association. Several societies for the same object have been formed in Germany, but they made little progress in spreading their views until the summer of 1876. cently it was announced that cremation would be permitted in the duchy of Gotha without the interposition of legal obstacles. Immediately Dr. Küchenmeister, President of the Urne Union at Dresden, proposed to enter into a correspondence for the purpose of calling a convention of the German unions to consider the subject of erecting at Gotha a furnace for cremation after the system of Friedrich Siemens. The result of the correspondence was that a congress of the friends and societies for cremation of all countries met at Dresden on the 6th and 7th of June. At this meeting the following countries were represented: Eng

land, by Dr. Cassie, secretary of the Cremation Society in London; France, by Prof. Müller, of Paris; Holland, by Dr. Egeling, medical director for the province of South Holland, and Prof. Hoogewerff, Ph. D., of Rotterdam; Switzerland, by Gottfried Kinkel; Germany, by members of the unions of the cities of Berlin, Bremen, Chemnitz, Gotha, Hamburg, and Leipsic, and the Urne Union of Dresden. At the introductory meeting, held on the 6th, reports were made by the delegates of the condition of the unions in their several dwelling-places and countries. The public meeting, on the morning of the 7th, was attended by about six hundred citizens, among whom were several ladies of the most cultivated circles of the city. Gottfried Kinkel, of Switzerland, made an address, in which he spoke of the æsthetics of cremation, of the pious exercises for which its ceremonies would give opportunity, and of its advantages in a sanitary point of view, and replied to the arguments which had been brought against it. He declared that, though he held that every one had a right to cremation, of which not even the state could deprive him, it was proposed, in introducing it, not to make it obligatory, only permissive. Engineer Schneider described the various methods which had been proposed for performing the process. It was understood, as of course, that the ancient funeral-pyres would not be revived, but closed apparatus would be substituted for them. It was decided to erect, by the united efforts of the friends of cremation in Germany and other lands, a building for conducting the process, either at Coburg or Gotha. Liberal subscriptions were offered, and the sum of 10,000 marks were secured in the meeting. With this sum the erection of a suitable building was considered pecuniarily assured. The establishment of a journal to advocate the cause was determined upon, and an international commission was appointed to carry that purpose into effect, consisting of Gottfried Kinkel, of Zürich; Sir Henry Thompson, of London; Prof. Emile Müller, of Paris; Baron von Stockhausen and Dr. Küchenmeister, of Dresden; and Herr Stier, of Gotha. Plans for a Large building, or "temple," for cremation, by Carl Pieper, engineer, of Dresden, and G. Lilienthal, architect, of Berlin, were inspected by the congress. They represent a building of elegant architectural appearance, surrounded with gardens and groves. It is provided with anterooms and a chapel, in which the religious rites may be celebrated in the presence of the friends of the deceased. The body, adorned with garlands and flowers, rests upon a catafalque, which after the services is noiselessly sank into the furnace-room below. Here it is *aken by the attendants and placed in its appropriate cell or retort, where it is consumed. In another room, or crypt, below the furnaces, is arranged a series of cells, each correspond ing to a furnace-cell above it, into which the

ashes of the deceased are carefully turned after the burning is completed. This room is reached by spacious staircases from the chapel. At the proper time the friends are called down to witness the ceremonial collection of the remains and the deposition of them in the urn, and finally in the columbarium. In places where several funerals are to be expected daily, the temple will be furnished with a corresponding number of furnace-cells, each with its corresponding cell for ashes in the crypt. A conspicuous feature of the plan is exhibited in the long rows of urn-houses, or columbaria, appearing as wings to the main building.

The first furnace for cremation in the United States has been built at Washington, Pa., by Dr. F. J. Le Moyne. The building is small and entirely plain, and with the furnace cost $1,600. It contains two rooms, a reception-room, with a table for the reception of the corpse, and a columbarium for the temporary deposit of the ashes, and a room for the furnace. The furnace is constructed on the Martin-Siemens principle, and consists of a structure of brick and fire-brick, ten feet long, six feet wide, and six feet high, inclosing a semi-cylindrical retort of fire-clay, seven feet long, twenty-four inches wide, and twenty inches high, its lid accessible from the outside at the door of the furnace. The body is thrust into this retort after the latter has been properly heated from below. The gases formed during the process of burning are carried off by a chimney. The required degree of heat is obtained by means of a fan-blast. At this furnace the first public cremation in the United States was conducted, on the 6th of December, 1876, when the body of Joseph Henry Louis Charles, Baron de Palm, was burned in it. Baron de Palm, a man of considerable social distinction, and a member of several honorable societies and orders, died in the city of New York on the 20th of May, 1876. He made the request of his executors that his body should be burned whenever the use of a furnace could be obtained. It was embalmed, to await the building of such a furnace. The process of the cremation was witnessed by a number of persons invited for the purpose, representing the Boards of Health of the State of Massachusetts and of the cities of Brooklyn and Pittsburg, physicians of several cities, correspondents of newspapers, and other persons. The fire was kindled in the furnace at seven o'clock on the morning of the day previous to that of the cremation. At half-past eight o'clock on the morning of the 6th, the body was placed in the retort. It had been deprived of its fluids during the process of embalming and was in very fit condition for a favorable operation. It was wrapped in a sheet which was saturated with alum to prevent exposure after the cloth was burned away, and was surrounded with flowers and evergreens. The evergreens were burned quickly, but their forms, as well as that of the sheet, could be plainly seen during

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