1150 TRADE OPPORTUNITIES.-ADVERTISING IN SP. AMERICA. Factories and Mills. Java.-A number of sugar-cane factories and refineries in Java are planned to be built by capitalists. Apply to C. Kraay, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Mexico.-Luis Garcia Teruel has received from the Mexican Government a concession to erect rolling mills in the State of Oaxaca. All requisite building materials and machinery may be imported "duty free.” Netherlands.--The municipality of Amsterdam plans the erection of an anatomical laboratory on the most improved style. Railways and Tramways. Belgium.-A railroad line is to be constructed from Bouillon to Cordion. Germany. The government of Hamburg has, by treaty with Prussia, agreed to the construction of a rapid transit electrical trunk-line railroad from Blankenese to Ohldorf. Java. A tramway line will be built from Rodjoso to Winaugan. Apply to "Nederlandsche Handels-Maatschappy," Pasoeroean, Java. Mexico.-Concessions have been granted for the construction of the following railroad lines: (1) To Pablo Martinez del Campo, City of Mexico, a narrow-gauge line in the city. (2) To General Augustin Pradillo, a line from Ciudad de Zitacuaro to Joconusco; office in the City of Mexico. Netherlands.-The Amsterdam and Rotterdam Railroad Company (head office in Amsterdam) purposes to negotiate a loan of $10,000,000, to be expended for new cars and extending the line. A steam railway line is projected to run from Almeloo to Ootmarsum and Denekamp. Apply to Ledeboer & Co., Almeloo. Russia. The British commercial agent in Russia reports that the laying of a second track on the Trans-Baikal line of the Siberian Railroad will require over 49,000 tons of steel rails, costing about $1,750,000. Spain. A new electric tramway line is to be constructed in the city of Saragossa. South Africa. According to Suedafricanische Wochenschrift, the Central South African Railway is to change from steam to electric traction. The annual saving thereby is estimated at $250,000. Switzerland.-Engineer van Erlach, in Spietz, has obtained a permit to build an electric railroad from Interlaken to Merligen. Another electric tramway is planned for that town, concerning which Regety & Co., Spietz, can give information. The firm of Bebie-Heft, Linthal, is to build an electric cable line from that town to Braunwald. Another cable railroad will be built from Muttas to Muraigl, Upper Engadine. For details, apply to Engineer Englert-Faber, Basle. RICHARD GUENTHER, Consul-General. FRANKFORT, GERMANY, February 7, 1905. Advertising in Spanish America. As the value of Patents and Trade Mark registrations depends entirely upon the ability to successfully do business in the country granting the protection we feel that the very suggestive article, bearing the above title, which we reprint below, will prove interesting and profitable reading. (Daily Consular Reports, March 20, 1905.) The immense amount of advertising matter from the United States received at our consulates has repeatedly called my attention to the fact that no other country spends so much money in an often fruitless effort to attract the public attention abroad. I am in receipt, week by week and steamer by steamer, of requests from manufacturers and merchants in the United States, varying from a polite invitation to address and mail to people in Peru circulars inclosed by the writer, or an equally courteous demand that I shall "hand this letter and price list to some one interested," to an appeal for lists of "all the exporters and importers of the country I am accredited to, with a few remarks as to their business standing." It is needless to expatiate upon the futility of such methods. To begin with, as the printed matter is almost invariably in the English language, it is certain to convey absolutely no information to the addressees. Often it is not even illustrated. Some years' experience and more or less close contact with trade in SpanishAmerican countries have led me to believe that the advertising of American goods, wherever it is successfully carried on, has been accomplished by the gift of small trinkets, or by pictorial methods-picture cards, fancy booklets, plaques, chromos, and particularly by illustrated almanacs and calendars, all highly colored; also by posters of the latter class. Military and naval subjects, and portraits of popular actresses, all highly colored, seem invariably to be found most attractive. I can remember numberless instances where, in the interior of Porto Rico and Cuba, prior to the war of 1898, in the Artibonite, Haiti; in the port of Santa Marta, Colombia; in the hill country of Nicaragua, several days' horseback journey from the seashore, etc., I have been greeted by the sight of a patent penknife or corkscrew sent with some firm's compliments; or was referred to some almanac printed in Spanish and devoted one-third to information and two-thirds to lauding so and so's bitters or emulsion or chill cure; or was confronted by a familiar highly colored poster which had attracted the eye and had been treasured as a wall ornament. These things had evidently fulfilled their purpose. If merchants at home were to bear this in mind much useless trouble and considerable expense could be saved them. To be sure there are many countries in Spanish America where advertising with trinkets offers obstacles-customs duties, often chargeable by gross weight or specific duties of high value, proving a great bar. But with printed matter the same objection does not hold good, such being almost invariably duty free. The desideratum is to find a pattern which will catch the eye and please the popular taste, as well as prove intelligible to those not schooled in the English language-something which shall be preserved and not simply tossed aside. Considering the fad for collecting pictorial postal cards which at present exists and for some years past has existed in Spanish America as well as in Europe, I have often wondered that some enterprising firm in the United States has not seized upon this valuable medium for advertising its wares. A number of prominent hotels and business houses in Spanish America have already done so; and their advertisements, gotten up usually in the form of street scenes (showing incidentally their own establishment adorned with a prominent signboard) printed on the back of ordinary postal cards, are treasured in the albums of many families. There is here an opportunity for our hotels, railroads, and steamship lines (all heavy advertisers), as well as for numberless other branches of trade, to gain an entry before a new public. The work need not be expensive, as the mere reprinting of the cuts used in the advertising supplements of our prominent magazines would, I am sure, prove attractive enough, although the printing of such natter in colors would be more effective. CALLAO, PERU, January 16, 1905. A. L. M. GOTTSCHALK, Consul. United States. Copyright. An amending Act was approved March 3, 1905. It relates solely to books published in language other than English. The following is the text of the Act: An Act to amend Section forty-nine hundred and fifty-two of the Revised Statutes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section forty-nine hundred and fifty-two of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows: "SEC. 4952. The author, inventor, designer, or proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, cut, print, or photograph, or negative thereof, or of a painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, and of models or designs intended to be perfected as works of the fine arts, and the executors, administrators, or assigns of any such person shall, upon complying with the provisions of this chapter, have the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing, and vending the same; and, in the case of a dramatic composition, of publicly performing or representing it, or causing it to be performed or represented by others. And authors or their assigns shall have exclusive right to dramatize or translate any of their works for which copyright shall have been obtained under the laws of the United States. "Whenever the author or proprietor of a book in a foreign language, which shall be published in a foreign country before the day of publication in this country, or his executors, administrators, or assigns, shall deposit one complete copy of the same, including all maps and other illustrations, in the Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia, within thirty days after the first publication of such book in a foreign country, and shall insert in such copy, and in all copies of such book sold or distributed in the United States, on the title page or the page immediately following, a notice of the reservation of copyright in the name of the proprietor, together with the true date of first publication of such book, in the following words: 'Published nineteen hundred and Privilege of copyright in the United States reserved under the Act approved nineteen hundred and five, by and shall within twelve months after the first publication of such book in a foreign country, file the title of such book and deposit two copies of it in the original language or, at his option, of a translation of it in the English language, printed from type set within the limits of the United States, or from plates made therefrom, containing a notice of copyright, as provided by the copyright laws now in force, he and they shall have during the term of twenty-eight years from the date of recording the title of the book or of the English translation of it, as provided for above, the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, vending, translating and dramatizing the said book: Provided, That this Act shall only apply to a citizen or subject of a foreign State or nation when such foreign State or nation permits to citizens of the United States of America the benefit of copyright on substantially the same basis as to its own citizens," Approved, March 3, 1905. The following is a list of the countries whose citizens or subjects may obtain copyright protection in the United States: Belgium, Chili, China, Costa Rica, Cuba. Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and her possessions (including Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, etc.,) Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands (Holland), and possessions, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. Messrs. Church & Church for the appellant. Messrs. Chamberlain & Wilkinson and Mr. J. Snowden Bell for the appellee. Decided December 7, 1904. 114 O. G., 545. I. SECTION 1389 CODE D. C.-SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY-DIES NON JURIDICUS. 2. LIMIT OF APPEAL TO COURT OF APPEALS-SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY EXCLUDED FROM LIMIT OF APPEAL. Held that the Saturday half-holiday prescribed by the code of the District of Columbia should be taken into account in the rule of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia requiring that appeals from the decision of the Commissioner of Patents to that court should be taken within forty days from the date of the ruling or order appealed from, exclusive of Sundays and legal holidays, and not afterward. 3. STATUTE LAW-RULE OF COURT OF APPEALS-EFFECT OF HALF-DAY DEDUCTED FROM LIMIT OF APPEAL. Held that for every Saturday occurring in the forty-day limit of appeal prescribed by the rule of the court of appeals there should be deducted one-half day, as the statute specifically and in express words divides the Saturday into two parts, one for business purposes and the other for a holiday. OPINION on motions to dismiss appeals. MORRIS, J.: In these two cases motions have been made on behalf of the appellees to dismiss the appeals, on the ground, as is alleged, that they have not been taken within the time prescribed by the rules of the court, which require that appeals from the decisions of the Commissioner of Patents to this court should be taken within forty days from the date of the ruling or order appealed from exclusive of Sundays and legal holidays, and not afterward. It appears that in the first-mentioned case the Commissioner's decision was rendered and bore date on January 5, 1904; and that the appeal was perfected by the filing of the petition and reasons of appeal on February 23, 1904. Seven Sundays and one legal holiday, the 22d of February, intervened, which being deducted left forty-one days from the rendition of the decision to the taking of the appeal. In the second case the decision was rendered and filed on July 14, 1904; and notice of the appeal was not given until August 31, 1904. This, excluding seven Sundays intervening, and there being no legal holiday, made also forty-one days between the decision and the appeal. Evidently, therefore, the appeals were too late in both cases, unless we take into the account the Saturday half-holiday prescribed by the code of the District of Columbia. Section 1389 of the code, which is contained in Chapter XI,VI on negotiable instruments, and which is intended to determine the time at which negotiable instruments are payable, includes a sentence apparently intended to be of more general application than would seem to be warranted by the context in which it is found. It is a provision that certain enumerated days,—namely, New Year's Day, Washington's Birthday, the Fourth of July, Decoration Day, Labor's Holiday, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, Inauguration Day, and "every Saturday after twelve o'clock noon," "shall be holidays in the District for all purposes." Originally, in the code as it went into effect on January 1 or 2 of 1902, the last clause read "shall be holidays in the District within the meaning of this section," which would restrict its operation to the matter of the presentation of negotiable paper for payment or acceptance. The substitution of the words-for all purposes-in the amendatory act of June 30, 1902, has been gradually understood and accepted as broadening the scope of this provision so as to make it apply to all official duty and to justify the cessation of all official work. It seems to be accepted on both sides of these cases as constituting the afternoon of Saturday as a dies non juridicus. So assuming it to be, we are urged on the one side, inasmuch as it is an old rule that the law takes no note of fractions of a day, to regard the whole of Saturday as a legal holiday for all judicial purposes; and, on the other side, for the same precise reason, to regard Saturday as no holiday, since there is enough of it left in which to transact all necessary and proper secular business. The question is a somewhat novel one, and almost necessarily so, since the establishment of the Saturday half-holiday is a comparatively recent institution. Only two judicial authorities on the point are cited to us; and these are from nisi prius courts in the State of New York. They are Phelan v. Douglas (11 How. Pr., 193) and Reynolds v. Palen, (20 Abbott's New Cases, N. Y. Sup. Court Rep.;) in both of which it was held that the party was entitled to a whole day for the act to be done, and that Saturday being a half-holiday should be excluded from the computation. It may be that, under the circumstances of these cases the decisions were correct; but under the reasoning of the cases it seems to us that the decisions might as well have been the other way. We think that in cases like the present the rule is no longer applicable that the law will take no note of fractions of days. The statute law here does specifically and in express words take note of such fractions. It expressly divides the Saturday into two parts, one for business purposes, and the other for a holiday; and we see no reason why we should not give effect both to the letter and the spirit of that law by taking note of half-holidays in our computations. Possibly under some circumstances this may lead to some inconvenience; but the inconvenience need not be without remedy, and it should not prevent us from giving effect to the letter of the law, when at the same time, as we believe, the spirit of it will also be subserved. In both of these cases there were seven Saturdays intervening. Each Saturday was a half-holiday. The seven Saturdays gave three full days and one-half of a day for business, and the same time for holiday. If we deduct three days and a |