at Bansko, Macedonia. With a party of six students, three or four Bulgarian teachers, Mr. Tsilka (a native preacher) and his wife, and one or two other workers, she set out from Bansko on the road to Djumiak, a day's journey distant. In the afternoon, while passing over a difficult mountain road, the party was surrounded by thirty or forty armed men, who were dressed as Turks and masked. The captives were marched a little way up the steep side of the mountain and were robbed of their valuables. Then the brigands departed, taking Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka with them. A guard detained the rest of the missionary party until the following day, so as to prevent the abduction from becoming known until the captors of the missionary and her companion should have got well away from the scene.

It was soon rumored that the abductors were not brigands in the ordinary sense, but Macedonian revolutionists, who by. this crime were seeking to raise money for their propaganda. In any event, whoever they were, their demands were specific and their threats were dire. The American Board felt that it could not pay the ransom from its funds without establishing a very dangerous precedent. It was also argued, of course, that even for private individuals to meet the demands of the brigands would be to court repetitions of the deed. But Miss Stone's friends in the United States set about the raising of a ransom fund by subscriptions. The United States Government made earnest representations to the Turkish Government in regard to the abduction, and Turkish and Bulgarian troops began a hunt for the bandits. There was some suspicion that Turkey and Bulgaria were playing a tricky game, the troops of each country trying to drive the brigands into the territory of the other, so as to escape any official responsibility for the kidnapping. Both Turkey and Bulgaria were afraid that the United States would demand government indemnity for whatever ransom money might be paid to secure Miss Stone's release. From Turkish sources the story even emanated that Miss Stone was herself in sympathy with the Macedonian revolutionists and had consented to be kidnapped in order to aid their cause!

Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka had not been released by the end of the year, but agents were negotiating with the brigands as to terms. The sum collected for the ransom was reported to fall short of the amount demanded.

ITALY AND AUSTRIA

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Minor International Complications

The more important international events of 1901 have been outlined. Of those that remain a few matters should be noted.

France and Morocco reached an understanding as to the interior boundaries between Morocco and Algeria, and the Moorish Government made reparation for various outrages against foreigners by its unruly subjects.

Italian Dalmatians, in October, seized the cloister of an Austrian Roman Catholic Seminary at Rome, hoping that the Italian Government would not oppose the occupation. They asserted that they were entitled to some of the revenue of the seminary. Their real intention was to use the college for the Servian propaganda against Austria, the object of which was to detach Dalmatia and Croatia from Austria and join them to Servia. But the scheme failed, for after considerable negotiation the Italian Government returned the seminary to Austria.

Switzerland had some difficulty with restrictive measures regarding foreign agitators who had settled within her boundaries. In April there was a meeting at Geneva to protest against the extradition of an anarchist wanted by the Italian Government. The ringleaders in the demonstration were foreigners. They engineered an attack on the Russian consulate, tearing down the escutcheon, and attempted another, which was frustrated by the authorities, on the Italian consulate. The Swiss Government made ample apologies for these insults and expelled from the country the most notorious of the agitators. In the following month there was another anti-Russian demonstration at Berne, but it amounted to little, though Russia felt called upon to protest against it. The Swiss Government showed an inclination throughout the year to free the country from the reputation of being a haven for revolutionary riff-raff. On Turkey's complaint the Young Turk party's journalistic activity in Switzerland was officially limited. This was carrying restriction to an extreme, for the Young Turks, though opposed to the existing government in Turkey, were justified in their propaganda by Armenian massacres and other results of Turkish misrule. During the year, by the way, news came that fresh massacres had been perpetrated in Armenia. If the report was true, the Turkish Government succeeded in preventing the verified facts from reaching the Powers.

CHAPTER VII

THE YEAR'S LEGISLATION

No record of the progress or retrogression of a year can be complete without an analysis of the new laws enacted by the various nations. The subject has been touched upon incidentally in preceding chapters whenever legislation has noticeably affected international or colonial relations, but there remain to be considered a number of laws more especially of domestic import. They fall naturally into two groups: laws formulated to satisfy problems of control, and laws intended to bring about industrial, commercial, financial, and social improvement.

The line of demarcation between these groups is not always apparent, but as a rule the distinction is sufficiently clear to make classification a simple matter. It is, as has been intimated, the duty of Government not merely to conserve the rights of its people and "to preserve its own existence," but to promote the welfare of its people by every legitimate means. Under representative forms of government this larger duty is performed chiefly by popular legislation. In the bureaucratic and autocratic countries the work is accomplished by executive acts. In either case it is to be assumed that, barring sinister personal ambitions, the object is always progressive. Retrogression occurs through mistakes of judgment, not through intention. The impulse of the race is to go forward.

Congressional Measures

When the second session of the Fifty-Sixth Congress of the United States resumed its sittings on January 3, 1901, after the holiday recess, the Senate displaced the ship subsidy bill from its privileged position as unfinished business in order to consider the bill for army reorganization. In the House, Representative M. E. Olmsted, of Pennsylvania, brought up the alleged abridgment of the suffrage in Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and North Carolina, in order that the bill for