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10 MARINE REVIEW. Ohio Coal Railway Settlement. The warring coal and ore railways of Ohio, all of which suffered heavy losses by a competition of rates during the past year for what they regarded as their share of a business that did not exist, have again en- tered into an agreement, and it is announced once more that rates for car- rying coal from the mining regions of Ohio to lake ports for shipment to the northwest are to be strictly maintained. In the agreement, which is to be passed upon this week by the Ohio Coal Traffic Association, the allotments are as follows: Toledo & Ohio Central, 16.40 per cent. ; Wheeling & Lake Erie, 13.44 per cent.; Cleveland, Lorain & Wheel- ing, 12.97 per cent.; Columbus, Sandusky & Hocking, 12 per cent. ; Baltimore & Ohio, 10 per cent., and Toledo, Walhonding Valley & Ohio, 7 per cent. It will be seen that the Columbus, Sandusky & Hocking, which maintained its claim for 15 per cent., and for some time stood in the way of a complete agreement, is contented with 12 per cent., but there is a provision by which it is allowed to carry 14 per cent. additional, so that the amount it asked at the previous conference is reduced but 14 per cent. It must, however, do so, as the agreement says, "by fair means." This is explained to mean if it lives up to the letter of the agreement, and still obtains the 14 per cent. of business in excess of the regular allotment, the Joss will be born pro rata by all the other six lines. The agreement, if adopted by the executive com- mittee of the Ohio Coal Traffic Associaiton, is to be operated one year. Against Foreign-Built Yachts. A feeling in ship building circles adverse to wealthy Americans who have gone to the Clyde for costly steam yachts has resulted in the passage of an act which aims to debar these yachts from privileges that have been generally accorded to pleasure craft under the customs regulations. The act, which has passed both houses of congress, is now in the hands of the president, and will undoubtedly be signed before the Review is in the hands of its readers. It amends section 4,216 of the revised statutes so as to read as follows: 'Yachts belonging to aregularly oganized yacht club of any foreign nation, which shall extend like privileges to the yachts of the United States, shall have the privilege of entering or leaving any port of the United States without entering or clearing at the custom house thereof or paying tonnage tax; provided, that the privileges of this section shall not extend to any yacht built outside of the United States and owned, chartered or used by a citizen of the United States. " It is understood that Edward Smith of Buffalo,.Capt. La Salle of Duluth and Capt. Sullivan of Chicago, who are engaged with the new insurance combination, are all to work on salaries. As might be expected, such general agencies as C. A. Macdonald & Co. and C. W. Elphicke & Co. of Chicago have been fully awake to changes that are now coming over the insurance situation and are planning to care ror and secure the patronage of customers, whom they have had for a great many years past. David Vance, who is about to return from a visit to England, where he has been consulting the principals of his companies, has also taken occasion to write personally from the other side to customers here, advising them of his plans. In the end it would seem that the outcome of the whole matter will be cheaper and better insurance for the better class of vessels, both wood and steel. A deficit of $349,399 was shown inthe annual report of the Illinois Steel Co., which was submitted at the annual meeting in Chicago, Wednesday. H. H. Porter and J. C. Morse, directors of the company,retired and Isaac L. Ellwood of De Kalb, Ill., and Cornelius C. Cuyler of New York, a member of the firm of Cuyler, Morgan & Co., were chosen to succeed them. H. A. Gray resigned as secretary and treasurer, and William A. Green, the former assistant secretary, was made secretary, and William H. Thompson, the former cashier of the company, was made treas:zrer. Dispatches from Washington announce that, notwithstanding the overwhelming importance of testimony favorble to an appropriation for a steam vessel to deliver mail on the Detroit river, the house com- mittee on post offices and post roads has inserted in the post office ap- propriation bill a clause providing that the mail must be delivered in rowboats. The measure is not as yet before the house, and must, of course, be passed upon also by the senate, so that there is no telling». what the outcome in the matter will be. Trying to Scare Underwriters, 2 Someone who is interested 'in insurance on the lakes, and who evidently has an axe to grind, is trying to scare the principals of com. panies that may be intending to engage in the lake business during the coming season. Fairplay of London, which is one of the. mog influential of the shipping journals in England, prints the following from a New York correspondent: " aia "Recent articles from this side that have been. reproduced on noticed in your paper are apparently intended to encourage English underwriters to continue lake hull insurance, and it is not to be won- dered at that the hull owners should desire the benefits of the English hull form of policy and compel its acceptance, if possible, by such of the American underwriters as are weak enough to attempt to enter this dangerous field under conditions that preclude any possibility of profit, but with a chance of loss almost unlimited. The past season has been unusually free from serious disaster, but welearn from underwriters who watch their account closely that the endless claims for general average, particular average, and collisions, together with the one or two more important losses, have entirely consumed the premium : and that the result will probably show a small balance on the wrong side. The very tyro in underwriting should appreciate the dangers attendant upon an account where the 'inevitables and incidentals' cause the premium fund to melt like snow before a summer sun, leay- ing nothing to provide for the enormous and ever increasing collision hazards or for disasters that are sure to follow a severe gale on the lakes, when every underwriter writing a general account is sure to have very large interests at stake at one time, and in one general locality, and subject to one general peril, oftentimes of great severity: Lake vessel owners have brought the matter of hull insurance to a fine art, and they may be depended upon to work the English market so long as it is workable.' es As the result of a statement from the secretary of the treasury, claiming that under the present law, which allows steamboat inspectors traveling expenses at 8 cents per mile, the government has been over- charged to the extent of some $22,000, both houses of congress have passed a bill reducing the rate to 5 centsa mile. The president will undoubtedly sign the bill, if he has not already done so. The new law provides that "every inspector shall be paid his actural and reasona- ble traveling expenses'or mileage, at the rate of 5 cents per mile, in- curred in the performance of his duties, together with his actual and reasonable expenses for transportaton of instruments, which shall be certified and sworn to under such instruction as shall be given by the secretary of the treasury."' Another combination of steel interests is announced from Pitts- -- burg. The Oliver-Snyder Steel Co. was organized there, Wednesday, with a capital stock of $1,500,000. This company is formed by the consolidation of the Hainsworth Steel Co. of Pittsburg, the Edith. blast 1urnace of Allegheny, Rosena furnaces of New Castle, the coke. and coal property of the Oliver Coke & Furnace Co. and the Oliver-_ Hainsworth interest in the Carnegie-Rockefeller ore properties on the Mesabi range. Henry W. Oliver, formerly president of the Oliver Steel Co., is chairman of the board of directors, W. F. Snyder is president, George L. Brown, secretary, and James Collerd, treasurer. _ It was officially stated in the house of commons recently that the British government pays Delaunay, Belleville & Co., French owners of patents on the Belleville water tube boilers, a royalty of $26,250 on boilers in each of the two big cruisers Powerful and Terrible. This is equal to more than $1 per horse power. These boilers are NOW further advertised through the intention of the British government to fit them to a yacht that is being designed for Queen Victoria. Engines of the yacht are to be of the four-cylinder four-crank type, So as to secure the minimum of vibration, and the speed of the vessel will probably be about 20 knots. 7 A neat vest-pocket note book, with about 20 pages of tables and other information pertaining to iron and steel welded tubular goods of all descriptions, has been issued by the Syracuse Tube Co. of Syra- cuse, N.Y. Mather & Wood, of Port Jefferson, L, I., will build a 145-foot wooden passenger propeller for the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamboat Co.