September 17, 1898.J
The annual meeting for the purpose of receiv. ing the Committee's report for the past season, and for electing the committee and officers for the forthcoming season, will be held in the Cricket Pavilion on Thursday, September 22nd, at 5 p.m. An extraordinary general meeting will be held immediately after the annual meet- ing for the purpose of altering Rule 3.
Present reading of Rule 3, "Five of the Com- mittee shall form a quorum."
Proposed alteration, Rule 3, "Three of the Committee shall form a quorum."
A FRENCH JOURNALIST MAKES MERRY OVER THE KOWLOON EXTENSION.
We translate the following amusing squib by the Hongkong correspondent of L'Écho de Chine (Shanghai):-
Our readers will no doubt remember the tele- gram of the Peking correspondent of the Times announcing that on the 9th June last the Em- peror of China gave to the Gracious Queen Victoria and Her successors a ninety-nine years' lease of a territory the size of a French depart- ment, adjoining the colony of Hongkong, to- gether with two bays situated the one at the entrance of the Canton River and the other
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
RAUB GOLD.
The Local Secretary of the Raub Australian Gold Mining Co., Limited, Singapore, bas received the following telegram from Raub, dated 8th August, 1898:
**
Crushing finished, 2,300 tons stone realized 2,075 oz. smelted gold. Battery was stopped in all six days for want of water."
to
This return for the last two months' work, July-August (the fourth crush of the cur rent year). may be said maintain the highly satisfactory quality of the pre- rious crushings. The yield of gold per ton of stone sent through the battery is as much as 18 dwts. 1 grain of smelted gold. That is a return of about £3.10 a ton of stone, at £3.18 The value of the two months' work, nearly a week of which was lost by want of water for the battery, amounts, in sterling to close on £8.100. The three previous crushes were as follows:-
per ounce.
1898 tons stone oz. gold dwts. per ton. Jan-Feb. 2,250 2,050 18.51 March-Apr. 2,450 2,222 18.3
May-June 2,300 2,150 18.16 So far as this year has gone 9,300 tons of stone have been crushed, yielding 8,497 ounces of gold, this being an average of 18 dwt. 63 grs. year, for eight months work, amounts, at £3.18 per ton. The total sterling yield of Raub this
per ounce, Lo £33,138, or, roundly, at 1s. 11d. to the dollar, to abont $330,000.
relation to expenditure it appears from the Com- In order that these returns be understood in pany's accounts that all working charges, includ- ing depreciation, and also including the whole addition to the value of the property) amounts work of further development (which is really an
to £1,500 per month. In other words, the
expenditure for the eight months under notice may be estimated at £12,000, against which is to be placed an actual sterling return of £33,138 worth of gold, this leaving a profit margin of £21,138 in eight months. In other words, a working profit of 176 per cent. A call, it is true, was made on the shareholders towards the cost of the electric installation, although at the same time a dividend of like amount was
declared.--Singapore Free Press.
THE EMPEROR OF CHINA ENCOUR- AGES FREE SPEECH.
|
239
itiative, but he commands the said Board to determine the adequate penalties" his Ministers deserved, with the result noted above.-N. C. Daily News.
CONSCRIPTION IN CHINA,
The following Imperial edict was issued ou the 5th instant-We have received a memorial from Chang Yin-huan saying that recently there have been many memorials presented to the Throne suggesting the advisability of inau- gurating the conscription among the people of the empire, according to foreign methods, in order to make the whole population of China this scheme is too wide for the present crisis, soldiers. The memorialist, however, thinks that but that if each province organises its own volunteer corps, drilling them according to the Western methods already sanctioned by the Throne, making the members serve a certain the Reserve, their places in time, and then putting them into
the corps be- ing taken by recruits and 'so on
the plan would bear quicker results, especially as the volunteers could be utilised to serve as garrisons when the regular troops are needed elsewhere, while they could further be used to reinforce the regulars in emergencies. We quite agree these volunteer corps could be formed into the with Chang Yin-huan's arguments, especially as nucleus of a huge army in times of need. This plan should be put into effect at once, specially as regards the province of Kuangsi, where there is a serious rebellion among the Secret Society We hereby command that the Viceroys and Governors of provinces put into action at once the recommendation of Chang Yin-huan and report to us within three months what they Governor of the Two Kwang provinces are to have done in the matter; but the Viceroy and be only given one month to report to us, on paiu of severe penalties.-N. C. Daily News.
men.
DUPLICATION OF THE CHINESE
TELEGRAPH LINES,
Referring to great complaints that have been made at Tientsin of the delays on the telegraph line from Shanghai the N. C Daily News says: -We now learn that the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration has realised that the existing lines cannot carry the enormously in- creased Government and private traffic, and whenever a break occurs or only one line is available, all traffic at once suffers serions delay. In order to remedy this and re- move the just complaints of the public, the Administration some time ago decided partly to add more wires, partly to built a duplicate line, and the work has already been started by different parties. From Shanghai to Chinking a duplicate line is being con- structed; from Chiukiang to Tsingkiangpu ad- ditional wires will be put up this month; from Tsingkiangpu to Chinan a duplicate line will be built as soon as the poles have been distri- bated. The duplicate line from Chinanto Taochon and Tientsin was finished last year, but two more wires have been added on that. line. The work is being pushed on as quickly as possible and it is hoped that within two or three months the public will find no more cause for complaint.
to the north of Hongkong harbour. Happy to profit by this occasion of giving pleasure to his venerable friend, the Emperor certainly thought he would also be making him- self agreeable to the inhabitants of the region in question, who are near enongh neighbours to Hongkong to appreciate the ineffable happiness of living henceforth under British dominion. Always amiable the English selected as the President of the Com- mission for the delimitation of the new frontier the Colonial Secretary, a charming, plump, and unctuous man, well known for his love of the Chinese, a sentiment 80 strong that at the time of his promotion to his present position he was unwilling to! surrender the position (or the salary attached to it) of Official Protector of Asiatics (Registrar-Gen- eral). The native population might have been expected to recognise this happy choice by sending deputations to present their chin-chins and by erecting triumphal floral arches at the entrances to all their villages. If the great man seemed happy and deigned to smile the joy of the population should have been expressed in frantic cheers. The pimply old ladies who It will be remembered that in the Imperial take such a lively interest in the conversion to edict of the 1st instant of which we published a Protestantism of the heathen Chinese shed compressed translation, the Emperor command- tears of tenderness in their tea cups as they ed the delinquent Ministers of the Board of thought of the imposing number of bibles that Rites "to be handed over to the Board of Civil the new additions to the very respectable house Appointments for the determination of adequate of John Bull and Co. would consume. But penalties." It is now learnt that when the ob- everything turned out quite differently. A noxious secretary handed his memorial to his thousand of the inhabitants of the village of Chiefs for transmission to the Emperor, they Kam Tin Hu, between Deep Bay and Taimo- not only refused point blank-after reading it shan, preceded by vigorously beaten gongs, ap -to do so, but called the former up before peared before the Commission, but in place of them and rated him soundly for his chin-chins and flowers they came with cries of audacity and insolence. To the surprise ta and “foreign devils." Nothing is said of of his Chiefs, Mr. Wang Hsun, the secret- the rotten eggs that emphasised these cries, butary in question, not only refused to take back the gates of the village were closed and the his memor.al but stoutly maintained his right Commission could not enter. The decision' of the to write it. The Board of Civil Appointments Pretector of Chinese was quickly taken: "Bring having received the Emperor's edict of the 1st up seventy-five men from the Plover under arms inst., appears to have lost no time in determiu. and two Maxims." The order was rapidly exe-ing the penalties incurred by the Ministers of cuted and the Chinese, who had seen the guns the Board of Rites, for an unusually prompt at the Queen's Jubilee Review at Happy Valley, edict of the 4th iust, commands that Huai had heard that they were terrible weapons. Ta-pu and Hsu Ying-kuei, Manchn and Chinese The Commission gave them ten minutes to Presidents of the Board of Rites; Kun Hsiu An Imperial edict of the 1st instant may open the gates before firing. The villagers and Hsu Hui-li, Manchu and Chinese Senior perhaps, be taken as an indication of the strug- obeyed-and that is how relations were Vice-Presidents; Pu Ting and Tseng Kuang-gle that is now going on at Peking between tablished between the English Government han (Earl Weiyi), Manchu and Chinese the advocates of reform, headed by the Emperor and its new subjects. The old ladies of Junior Vice-Presiden's of the said Board, be himself, and the bulk of the conservative party. foggy Albion's Tract Societies will hare hereby cashiered for daring to disobey our It appears that a second-class secretary of the much difficulty in understanding the state of decrees and oppose our desire to reform Board of Rites, named Wang Hsün, composed mind of these despicable wretches who ought our government." The decree winds up by a memorial containing suggestions for reform- to be so grateful to philanthropic England praising the resolution and moral courage of ing his Board, and this paper the secretary for having sent during the last half cen- Wan Hsun, the secretary in question, in refus- asked his superior officers, the Presidents and tury so many merchants to enrich them-ing to take back his words even when "threa- Vice-Presidents of the Board of Rites, to hand selves at the expense of the Chinese and so tened by a whole array of powerful Ministers." to the Throne on his behalf. The plain lang. many missionaries to sell bibles of all shapes. In reward for this, Wang Hsun is promoted to nage of the writer, denouncing the laziness of It would be an irksome task to do good to the be a Metropolitan official of the 4th grade with his superiors, evidently gave great offence to aborigines if one had not in view some small the brevet rank of the 3rd grade button—a posi- them and resulted in Huai Ha-pu, the Manchu advantages such as those obtained in Egypt, tion which under ordinary circumstances it. President of the Board, heading a joint where the fellahs have been subjected to a would have taken him at least twelve to fifteen memorial of his colleagues denouncing in no pressure sufficiently intense to keep sumptuously years to obtain. It will also be observed that measured terms the audacity and revolutionary A crowd of English functionaries who would his Majesty in dealing out his punishments has ideas of their subordinate and asking that he be be in the way anywhere else.
been politic enough not to do so on his own in. 'severely punished as a warning to others. It
es-
*
|
|
REFORM AT PEKING.