VESSELS OVERTAKING OTHER VESSELS.

Article 17. Every vessel overtaking any other vessel shall keep out of way of the said last-mentioned vessel.

CONSTRUCTION OF ARTICLES 12, 14, 15, AND 17.

Article 18. Where, by the above rules, one of two ships is to keep out of the way, the other shall keep her course subject to the qualifications contained in the following article:

PROVISO TO SAVE SPECIAL CASES.

Article 19. In obeying and construing these rules due regard must be had to all dangers of navigation, and due regard must also be had to any special cir cumstances which may exist in any particular case rendering a departure from the above rules necessary in order to avoid immediate danger.

NO SHIP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TO NEGLECT PROPER PRECAUTIONS.

Article 20. Nothing in these rules shall exonerate any ship, or the owner, or master, or crew thereof, from the consequences of any neglect to carry lights or signals, or of any neglect to keep a proper lookout, or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen, or by the special circumstances of the case.

Approved, April 29, 1864.

INCOME AND EXPENDITURES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1864.

THE following is an account of the gross public income of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in the year ending the 30th day of June, 1864, and of the actual payments within the same period, exclusive of the sums applied to the redemption of funded or paying off unfunded debt, and of the advances and repayments for local works, etc. :

COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS.

REVENUE LAW DECISIONS.

DECISIONS OF THE COMMISSIONERS UPON "RECEIPTS

IN INTERNAL TRANSPORTATION.

AND BILLS OF LADING

THE Commissioner of Internal Revenue made a decision, a few days since, to the effect that the person to whom a receipt is given must furnish the stamp. Commissioner LEWIS says:

"Ordinarily at law no person is bound to give a receipt for money paid. The receipt is an instrument of evidence, useful only to the person to whom it is given. If he needs a receipt, it is necessary for him to furnish the stamp, or to stamp the receipt, if required, before it is signed. The person who receives the money is not obliged to give a receipt unless the other party furnishes the proper stamp. If a person gives a receipt without requiring that the party to whom it is given shall furnish the stamp, the maker of the reccipt must himself stamp the the paper before he delivers it. If he fails to stamp it before he delivers it, he is liable to the penalty provided by law for the omission; but the other party may stamp it immediately upon its being received."

It would have been much simpler and better, as we think, if, by this new revenue law, every person were required, as is the case in England, to give on demand a stamped receipt to any one paying them money over a certain sum. The Commissioner has also made the following decision respecting bills of lading. We give the correspondence in full:

NEW YORK, August 8, 1864.

HON. J. J. LEWIS, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, }

DEAR SIR,-Herewith I hand you a pro-forma bill of lading or receipt, which in character is about the same as is in use by all the railroad and transportation companies doing business between New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Western States.

Will you please inform me if it requires a "stamp." If yea, what denomination?-Respectfully yours, M. B. SPAULDING.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF INTERNAL REVENUE,

WASHINGTON, August 18th, 1864.

SIR,-In answer to your letter of the 8th inst., I have to say that receipts for the delivery of any property are chargeable with a stamp duty of two cents, and this applies to all dray receipts and all receipts issued or received by steamboats, railroads or express companies.

Bills of lading, or receipts for any goods, wares or merchandise, to be transferred from any port or place in the United States, and to be delivered at any port or place in the United States, are subject to the stamp of two cents.

Very respectfully,

JOSEPH J. LEWIS, Commissioner.

The result of this decision is, that the railroads and all transporting companies will require the shipping merchants to send receipts "stamped."

DECISIONS IN REGARD TO DRAY RECEIPTS.

OFFICIAL DECISION.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF INTERNAL REVENUE,

WASHINGTON, September 13, 1864.

}

GENTLEMEN, I reply to your letter of the 6th instant, that bills of lading or receipts of goods, wares, or merchandise, to be transported from one port or place in the United States, and to be delivered at any port or place in the United States, are subject to the stamp duty of two cents.

Duplicates or triplicates are subject to the same duty as originals.

The blank form submitted by you, called a "dray ticket," appears to be only a memorandum for sake of convenience, and not a receipt within the meaning of the act of Congress, is not subject to the stamp duty of two cents.

Very respectfully,

JOSEPH J. LEWIS, Commissioner.

Messrs. HAMILTON & DUNNICA, St. Louis.

REVENUE STAMPS ON FREIGHT RECEIPTS.

BOSTON BOARD OF TRADE.

A report has just been made by the Boston Board of Trade on this question of stamping receipts, in which they propose the following rules. Whether the Commissioner on Internal Revenue will review his numerous decisions is doubtful, but that he ought to is evident:

That receipts given at railroad stations, on the delivery of freight for transportation, be stamped by the railroad company.

That through receipts given by transportation companies or lines, be stamped at the expense of the shipper.

That receipts, given by consignees to railroad companies on the arrival of merchandise, be stamped by the consignees.

That receipts given at the ship's side, usually called mate's receipts, be stamped at the expense of the ship.

That bills of lading be stamped at the expense of the shipper.

That receipts for freight money be stamped at the expense of the party to whom the payment is made.

THE BOOK TRADE.

Mercantile Dictionary; a Complete Vocabulary of Commercial Technicalities, in English, Spanish and French. By J. DE VEITELLE. D. APPLETON & Co. THE Mercantile Dictionary of Mr. Dè VEITELLE supplies one of the greatest wants of the commercial community. The office of foreign correspondent is one of the most responsible in a large firm, and requires such a complete knowledge of the mercantile technicalities and idiomatic expressions in the different languages, as but few, even of the most accomplished linguists, possess. He who realizes the importance of little things in business life, and sees the serious results of apparently the most trivial errors can readily understand what might be the consequence of an idiom wrongly translated,

by giving to the receiver of the letter an entirely false idea. To prevent these errors is the object of the Mercantile Dictionary. The correspondent, when brought to a stand still, can refer to it, and is immediately set right; whereas, without it, he might waste much time searching through the most comprehensive general dictionaries, which, being prepared for an entirely different purpose, might fail at last to give him the desired information. The book itself is very well gotten up, and is too small to be at all in the way, when standing, in a convenient place, on the desk. We regret that the German does not also form one of the languages, as that is now so important

to the mercantile world.

Heath's Infallible Counterfeit Detector at Sight. The only infallible method of detecting counterfeit, spurious, and altered bank notes, and applicable to all banks in the United States and Canadas, as now in circulation or that may be issued, with genuine bank note designs, by the American Bank Note Co. Boston: LABAN HEATH. 1864.

ANY reliable method of detecting spurious notes in these days of paper currency, when counterfeiting might almost be said to form a regular business, is a matter of importance to every individual; how much more so is it, when the method is so simple, as to be understood by every one, who will take the trouble to examine it, and so infallible as to detect the most carefully prepared counterfeit, even on the first application of the test. Mr. HEATH's method for detecting bad bills requires no knowledge of the different banks, which are scattered, as thick as blackberries, all over the country; but the fineness of the work is made to tell whether the bill is good or bad. Genuine bank notes are prepared by one or the other of the great Bank-Note Companies, whose machinery is exceedingly costly, and whose engraving is of the very finest description. No engraving done by hand can equal that done by this machinery, and no counterfeiter would care to invest $75,000 to $150,000 in an illegitimate business, which, if discovered-and on account of the bulk of the machinery it would be difficult to conceal it-would not only result in a total loss of capital, but subject him also to a criminal's punishment. There are also ways given to detect altered bills, and the book is illustrated by very beautiful specimens of bank note engraving. It will be found very useful to those-and their name is legion-who would rather carry good than bad money, in their pockets.

The Potomac and the Rapidan. Army Notes, from the Failure at Winchester to the Reinforcement of Rosecrans. By ALONZO H. QUINT, Chaplain of the Second Massachusetts Infantry. CROSBY & NICHOLS, Boston, Mass.; O. S. FELT, N. Y.

A SERIES of letters written to the Congregationalist, by one of its clerical army correspondents, after being carefully revised, forms the basis of this work. The author, being the chaplain of one of the Bay State regiments, whose perils and privations be has shared, and whose glories he has a right to be proud of, is, by his position, highly qualified to tell us of those incidents which he himself has seen. His narrative extends over some of the most interesting portions of the war. It embraces the period, when, at the termination of the peninsular campaign, Gen. POPE in vain strove to stem the onward current of invasion, and after carrying us through the battle of Antietam, the incidents of the following winter, and the disasterous defeat at Chancellorville, it shifts the scene to Tennessee, and gives an account of army doings there. Thus this little book presents a double attraction. By reading it we kill two birds with one stone. We obtain a knowledge of army life, both in Virginia and Tennessee; we are intro