COLORADO. 



I The number of horses, as estimated by officials, 

 as 157,427; of swine, 29,460; of mules. 9,118; 

 r cattle, 1,290,421. 

 The increase in the number of cattle since 1890 

 is 572,560, or over 79 per cent. The sheep increase 

 has been remarkable. From the estimates made 

 for 1900 and the census figures of ten years ago 

 there has been an increase of 1,667,337 in number, 

 or 232 per cent., and yet the highest price was paid 

 for Colorado lambs this year that ever has been 

 recorded. 



The report of the State Board of Horticulture 

 says that 733 varieties of fruit are grown in the 

 State, there being 225 varieties of apples alone. 

 The prices received for fruit in 1899 were higher 

 than ever, and contracting agents from every large 

 Eastern city were here last year to secure the 

 Toducts of the Colorado orchards. 



At present quail are distributed through the 

 ,te as trout and other fish are given out for the 



reams. The explanation is given as follows: 



In several of the counties on the western slope 



e quails have become so numerous that the 

 itizens have petitioned the Fish and Game 

 'ommissioner to do something for them. There 

 no open season for hunting quails in Colo- 



,do, and they have become so thick that they 

 destroy stocks of small grain and in some in- 

 stances have become so bold that chickens have 

 been driven from their food in the farmyard and 

 the stuff appropriated by the quails. The only 

 good the little birds accomplished was to destroy 

 the grasshoppers, and in this work there was noth- 

 ing that could equal them. In other sections of 

 the State there was an abundance of grasshoppers, 

 but no quail." The Game Commissioner therefore 

 offered a reasonable price for live quails, to be dis- 

 tributed to farmers applying for them. 



Complaint is made that the mule deer, which 

 formerly roamed over the plains in vast herds, is 

 threatened with speedy extinction. This is at- 

 tributed to the unskilled and cruel work of ama- 

 teur sportsmen, and to the greed of settlers, who 

 live upon venison, though all the time raising the 

 finest of cattle for the market. It is even said 

 that there are children fifteen years old in these 

 cattle districts who never have tasted beef. 



A local paper says: "The plains country in 

 eastern Colorado, which was once the breeding 

 ground and home of thousands of buffalo, is now 

 populated by thousands of coyotes, and so de- 

 structive have they become to the stock interests 

 of the section in question that the State of Col- 

 orado and the cattle barons, working together, 

 are offering $37.50 for every coyote scalp pre- 

 sented." 



The New Capitol. It was announced in Octo- 



Ir that the Capitol was complete. The site was 

 yen to the State by Henry C. Brown. Construc- 

 >n work was begun in 1886; the corner stone 

 is laid July 4, 1890; the whole cost was about 

 ,000,000. It is of Colorado granite. The dis- 

 nce around the outside walls is a quarter of a 

 ile; the height from the base line to the top of 

 e statue on the dome is 256 feet. From the dome 

 can be seen the Rocky mountains for a stretch of 

 200 miles; on a clear day Pike's Peak, Long's 

 Peak, and Gray's Peak are distinctly seen. 



Lawlessness. A dispatch from Canon City, 

 under date of Jan. 27, said that Thomas Reynolds, 

 the convict, who, with three others, escaped from 

 the Penitentiary after murdering Night-Captain 

 William C. Rooney, was captured near Florence, 

 10 miles east of Canon City, and brought to the 

 latter place in a wagon, where he was taken from 

 the officers by a mob and hanged to a telegraph 

 pole. 



CONGO, INDEPENDENT STATE OP THE. 127 



In May a negro was hanged by a mob at Pueblo 

 for assaulting and murdering two little girls. His 

 dead body was dragged through the streets, fol- 

 lowed by a mob of about 3,000 persons. 



Most horrible was the fate of a negro boy, Pres- 

 ton Porter, who assaulted and murdered a girl 

 of eleven on her way home from school at Limon, 

 Nov. 8. He was taken to the spot where the 

 crime was committed, chained to a stake, and 

 burned to death. The father of the little girl ap- 

 plied the match. The Governor has ordered an 

 investigation. 



Political. State officers were elected in No- 

 vember. The Democrats, Populists, and Silver 

 Republicans united on a fusion ticket. Following 

 were the nominees: For Governor, James B. Or- 

 man; Lieutenant Governor, D. C. Coates; Secre- 

 tary of State, D. A. Mills; Treasurer, J. N. Chip- 

 ley; Auditor, C. W. Crouter; Attorney-General, C. 

 C. Post; Judge of the Supreme Court, R. W. 

 Steele; Superintendent of Public Instruction, 

 Helen L. Grenfell; Regents, W. H. Bryant, F. E. 

 Kendrick. 



The Republican ticket was: For Governor, 



F. C. Goudy; Lieutenant Governor, P. S. Rider; 

 Treasurer, O. Adams, Jr. ; Auditor, J. S. Murphy ; 

 Secretary of State, J. W. Milsom; Attorney-Gen- 

 eral, R. T. Yeaman; Judge of the Supreme Court, 



G. C. Bartels; Superintendent of Instruction, lone 

 T. Hanna; Regents, C. R. Dudley, W. A. Packard. 



The Prohibitionists named the following: For 

 Governor, J. R. Wiley; Lieutenant Governor, T. 

 C. Chamberlain; Secretary of State, Mary L. Hen- 

 derson; Treasurer, W. H. McClure; Auditor, Jo- 

 seph Harvey; Attorney-General, James Miller; 

 Supreme Judge, F. I. Willsea; Superintendent of 

 Instruction, Elizabeth Smith; Regents, B. D. 

 Sanborn, W. E. Tetzel. 



The trades unions nominated a ticket through 

 the process of the initiative and referendum, but 

 the State Federation of Labor voted to abandon it. 



The official vote of the State was as follows: 

 For President: Bryan, 122,733; McKinley, 93,072. 

 For Governor: Orman, 121,995; Goudy, 93,245. 

 The entire fusion ticket was successful. 



A proposed amendment to the Constitution was 

 voted upon and appears to have been carried. 

 The effect is to permit the Legislature to propose 

 as many as six amendments at one session ; hereto- 

 fore it has been limited to one at a session. 



CONGO, INDEPENDENT STATE OF THE, 

 a sovereign, monarchical, neutral, and independent 

 State, created out of the Congo International Asso- 

 ciation, which was founded by the King of the 

 Belgians in 1883, and whose sovereignty was recog- 

 nized by the United States and the principal Euro- 

 pean powers before the signature of the general 

 act of Berlin. The Berlin Conference w T as sum- 

 moned by Prince Bismarck in November, 1884, 

 with the object of regulating the African question, 

 and its conclusions were embodied in a general act, 

 dated Feb. 26, 1885. Subsequent negotiations re- 

 sulting in treaties with France and Portugal gave 

 the State its present boundaries. At the end of 

 April, 1885, the Belgian Chambers passed resolu- 

 tions authorizing Leopold II, King of the Belgians, 

 to be the chief of the State founded in Africa by 

 the Congo International Association. The union 

 between Belgium and the Congo State was to be 

 exclusively personal, and King Leopold was and is 

 King of the Belgians and sovereign of the Congo 

 State. In April, 1887, the King obtained from the 

 French Government the waiving in favor of Bel- 

 gium of its right of pre-emption conceded by the 

 Congo Association in April, 1884, and thus secured 

 for his own country the undisturbed reversion to 

 the colony he had created in Central Africa. On 



