The progressive policy of President Pardo’s government is nowhere more conspicuously seen than in the Department of Public Works. The minister, Dr. Delfin Vidalón, last year published the report of his office in a volume of six hundred pages, every line of which bore reference to important industrial, commercial, or benevolent reforms in the numerous sections subject to his administration. In the direction of Fomento, which includes all matters relating to agriculture, mines, immigration, and various industries, as well as benevolent institutions, the amount of labor accomplished is phenomenal. Public works have been carried out on a vast scale, and in accordance with the most modern ideas. Railways, port works, and irrigation have occupied the best engineers of the government. Sanitation and hygiene, an important charge of this office, have received especial attention. The wireless telegraph, or radiograph, has been installed in the Amazon region, and successful experiments have been made in the use of this method of transmitting messages across the virgin forests of the tropics. A German company has successfully established radiographic communication from Puerto Bermudez on the river Pichis to Masisea on the Ucayali, this being the first attempt ever made to cross a territory densely covered by tropical vegetation. Two stations have been built, of three towers, each one hundred and fifty feet in height. The system is now being extended to Iquitos on the Amazon River. The question of public health is recognized by the government as of paramount importance to the well-being of the state, and the Department of Public Health has recently been made a dependency of the Ministry of Fomento. It is divided into two sections, hygiene and demography, and has the supervision of sanitary corps, vaccination, and all lazarettos of the republic. The sanitary corps have charge of the inspection of the ports,—the maritime sanitary defence being governed by regulations of the sanitary police, in accordance with the International Sanitary Convention held in Washington,—and sanitary stations are established at Paita, Ilo, and Callao. By this new organization, the means of guarding the health of the community is greatly simplified. Vaccination is obligatory in Peru. Sanitary inspection governs railway as well as steamboat traffic. The results are better health conditions in all the cities. [Illustration: THE CENTRAL MARKET, LIMA.]