1894.) Editorials. AE T 
EDITORIALS. 
—THeE postoffice department at Washington adopted last year a new 
style of letter box for cities, which has generally replaced the old ones. 
This change has been for the worse in one important respect. While 
the boxes of the new pattern afford better protection from thieves, they 
are unfit for the reception of second and third class matter generally. 
The opening is too small, and the fore and aft diameter is too narrow 
to receive the greater part of such matter. In the attempt to use these 
boxes for such matter, it is apt to be injured, but usually it cannot be 
inserted. As the new boxes were not, we learn, intended to exclude 
such matter, they show a lack of intelligence on the part of both the 
designer and the department. The old boxes are much more useful, 
but a new box of the modern pattern, with a wider gape and deeper 
throat, would be better still. Editors and publishers would be much 
accommodated by such a change. This would be an improvement 
much more important than most of the novelties introduced by the 
last administration of the postoffice department. 
—Tue International Congress of Zoologists of 1892, was held at 
Moscow, and was an occasion of much interest. Many important 
papers were read, a majority of them naturally having reference to 
various parts of the vast territory under the dominion of the Czar. A 
peculiar feature ‘of the volume issued by the Congress, which embraces 
the papers read or abstracts of them, is that it contains a full page 
portrait of the Grand Duke Serge Al Jrowitch in military costume, 
as a frontispiece. Below the portrait is a fulsome expressiom of “ ven- 
eration and thanks” for aid rendered the Congress by “ his imperial 
highness.” This strikes us as strangely out of place in a zodlogical 
work, and not less so because the Congress was “international.” The 
singing of the Russian national hymn, with which the last session of 
the Congress was closed, can hardly be regarded as an “ international ” 
zoological ceremony. 
—Tue conduct of the authorities of the Chicago Exposition since its 
close, has not been characterized by that care for the property of the 
exhibitors and others necessarily under their charge, which should 
characterize an honorable corporation. The buildings have been left 
insufficiently guarded, and tramps have had full opportunity to perpe- 
trate mischief, Among these, incendiary fires have been conspicuous, 
