.

Professor Starr Jordan, who is passing through Victoria on his way to
the Seal Islands, there to recommence the work of branding, has met with
a very cold reception from the sealers.

Professor Jordan has taken with him an electric outfit for branding,
which will do the work more quickly and effectually than the old method.

* * * * *

We have to record more labor troubles.

The coal miners in the United States have gone on strike, in obedience
to the order of the United Mine Workers of America.

The cause of this strike is that wages have been so reduced that the
miners can no longer earn enough to support themselves.

The men declare that the strike has been forced upon them by the poor
pay they have received, and that they have been expecting and preparing
for it for some time past.

They hope to make the strike general, and that it shall be the biggest
ever known.

The miners all over the country have been ordered to quit work, and it
is expected that they will do so.

The men in West Virginia at first refused, but the latest reports are
that they are gradually falling in line with the rest.

In many districts the miners have been offered the price they ask if
they will only go back to work. They have invariably refused, saying
that they will not resume work until the better rate of wages is made
general in all the mines.

There is danger of a coal famine if the strike lasts very long.

Several of the Western manufacturing cities are already running short of
coal, and though there is plenty at the pit's mouth, the strikers will
not allow it to be handled until their demands are complied with.

Efforts will be made to move this coal, and it is feared that the
strikers will then become violent and riotous. Up to the present time
they have been very peaceable.

The Governor of Indiana has asked the Governors of Ohio, Illinois, and
Pennsylvania to meet him, and discuss plans for arbitrating the
difficulty.

England also has her labor troubles. A great strike is going on in
London among the engineers.

It is a struggle for an eight-hour working day.

The men do not insist that they shall only work eight hours a day, but
that eight hours shall be considered the full day's labor, and all the
work they do over that shall be regarded as overtime, and paid for.

The strikers have a large fund in reserve to fall back upon, from which
they will each receive a certain wee