This commissioner will probably be Judge Day, a well-known lawyer of Canton, Ohio, and a personal friend of the President's.
The duties of the commissioner, besides making the most careful investigation into the Ruiz case, will be to find out what the real state of affairs in Cuba is at the present time. If his report is favorable to Cuba, it may induce the President to help the Cubans.
Gen. Fitz-Hugh Lee, our Consul-General in Havana, has absolutely refused to have anything to do with the Ruiz case. He declares that the examination will not be a fair one, and that nothing will be gained by it.
There is very little change in the situation in Crete.
The insurgents are fighting bravely, and the Powers, though doing their best to prevent trouble, are in much the same position that they were a week ago.
The real excitement of the week has been the landing from the British warships of a troop of Highlanders. These soldiers, by their extraordinary dress, caused a panic among the Turks, who, not knowing whether they were friends or foes, mortals or bogies, proceeded to attack them.
The Turkish officers with great difficulty succeeded in quieting their men and persuading them that the Highlanders were men and friends, but the fame and the terror of them spread all over the island.
The insurgents heard that a new race of men had been landed by the allies, and in their ignorance and superstition they fancied that some new and terrible kind of creature had been sent against them.
There was a small panic among the Cretans for a few days, and it was not until they had sent scouts to discover what kind of beings these were, and the report had come back that these terrible Highlanders were but men after all, that they had the courage to continue the fighting.