visit in the Hunan Province. Both men were among the Martyr Saints of China who would be canonized in 2000. Sunday, July 8, 1900 Elliott Frost, son of poet Robert Frost, died at age three of typhoid fever. Frost, who blamed himself for not calling his personal physician sooner, later wrote about the tragedy in the poem "Home Burial". Died: Henry D. Cogswell, 80, American philanthropist who championed the construction of drinking fountains across the nation as an aid to combatting the consumption of alcohol (b. 1820) Monday, July 9, 1900 In China, the Taiyuan massacre took place as Governor Yu-Hsien of the Shanxi Province ordered captive foreign missionaries and their families to be executed. After being promised an escort to safety, the prisoners were brought before the Governor, who ordered their beheading. Reverend George Farthing was the first to die, and after all the men had been executed, Farthing's wife and three young children were killed along with the remaining foreigners. Forty-six (34 Protestant and 12 Catholic) died in one day. Queen Victoria signed the Act to Constitute the Commonwealth of Australia (Stat. of Victoria, 63 & 64, Chap. 12), in duplicate, keeping one copy for the United Kingdom, and giving the other document to the representatives of the Australian colonies to take home with them, along with the table, the inkstand, and the pen that had been used for the signing. Under the Act, the Queen would proclaim that five of the six colonies (Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland) and "if Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto", a sixth, would "unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." The proclamation was made on September 17, 1900, and the Commonwealth came into being on January 1, 1901. Tuesday, July 10, 1900 "Nipper", the RCA Victor dog, was registered as a trademark and became one of the advertising icons of the 20th century. The dog belonged to Francis Barraud, whose painting His Master's Voice showed the animal listening to just that on a gramophone. Born: Mitchell Parish, Lithuanian-American songwriter from the "Tin Pan Alley" era, best known for writing the lyrics to Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" and to Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady", as Michael Hyman Pashlelinsky (d. 1993) Wednesday, July 11, 1900 Charlotte Cooper of the United Kingdom became the