At the present time a vessel voyaging from the Baltic to the Black Sea has to go all round Europe before it reaches its destination. Take your map and follow out the course a ship must take. It must skirt Denmark and pass into the North Sea, then go through the Straits of Dover, down the coast of France, across the Bay of Biscay, and down the coast of Portugal until the Straits of Gibraltar are reached. Here the vessel must pass into the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, and follow it along through the Grecian Archipelago, through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmora, and passing through the Bosporus, it at last finds itself in the Black Sea. The time required to make such a long voyage is a great loss to merchants, and the vessel has to pass through so many narrow straits and past so many strategic points that the voyage could hardly be undertaken if Russia were at war with any foreign nation. The canal is to be 213 feet wide at the surface, 115 feet at the base, and to have a depth of 27 feet. It should, therefore, be a very fine canal. Germany and the United States are both very pleased about this great work, for both nations see in it an opportunity to sell their iron and steel manufactures. The Czar of Russia has issued an order that there is to be no more exiling to Siberia except for certain very serious crimes. Instead, large prisons are to be built in Central Russia for the political criminals. The change is to go into effect in one year's time, when it is supposed that the new prisons will be in readiness. It seems almost too good to be true that the terrors of Siberian exile are to be abolished. To most of the unfortunate prisoners who were interviewed by Mr. George Kennan when he visited the Siberian convict settlements, even the horrors of the exile were as nothing compared to the awful journey on foot across the desolate steppes of Russia. All this will soon be at an end, and the nearness of the prisons to civilization will perhaps remove some of the abuses and ill-treatment of the prisoners now practised in the far-away Siberian prisons. If the young Czar Nicholas continues his kindly and humane methods of government it is likely that he will soon need very few political prisons. He has shown much kindness and clemency to his people since he came to the throne, and there is little doubt that his subjects will soon learn to love him and trust him in return. * * * * * The relations between the Transvaal and England are again being brought prominently before the world.