August 22, 1904.]
The Governor of Kiangsu memorialises con- cerning the re-establishment of the Soo-tsin and Boo-lun Government silk filatures at Boochow which were opened by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung in 1895, when that port was first thrown open to commerce. The capital was Tls. 800,000, 500,000 being taken from the Provincial Trea- suries at Soochow and Nanking and the remainder subscribed from Chinese merchants at Shanghai. But owing to the slackness of trade the filatures were leased to a wealthy Chinese merchant in 1900, who lost more than Tis. 300,000, which have now been made up by him by pressure from the memorialist. These flatures are now leased to Mr. Fei Cheung-ying. who agreed to pay Tls. 50,000 as rent per annum, besides it possible the payment of the necessary interest and bonus. The filatures were re- opened on the 1st June this year.— Peking Gazette.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
HONGKONG.
It is worthy of note, and very creditable to the police, that there have been no robberies at Kowloon for over a month.
H.K.V. Corporal J. II. Varcoe and Gunner F. W. White have been permitted to resign. Corporal H. Gidley has been granted leave of absence for 4 months from 10th instant.
In Kobe, a provisional attachment was effected on the property of Mrs. Euphemia Tonnochy. The case arose ont of a promissory note signed by Frank Tonnochy, formerly of Hongkong.
There were 583 deaths in June from disease or other causes, the annual rate being therefrom
computed at 21.6 per thousand (white civilians) or 21.3 including Chinese (Army and Navy excluded.)
141
In the Summary Court recently a Chinese washerman sued Mrs. Webb, of “ Killadoon," for a few dollars due for washing. Mrs. Webb's defence was that she did not know to whom to pay the money, as on previous occasions she had paid such accounts and because she paid them to the wrong man had had to pay them twice over. Mr. Justice Sercombe Smith in giving judgment for the plaintiff said he hims if had been compelled to pay accounts two times over, and he advised Mrs. Webb to see that in future her receipts bore the firm's chop as well as the signature of the man who collected the account. Some of the residents in Leighton Hill Road there behind the residences. are complaining of the state of the open drain The sanitary authorities have been asked to get the nuisance removed, but they appear to be powerless in the matter so far as present results show.
Government notification No. 529, having reference to the regulation of sampan traffic, is on the whole a satisfactory document. Re. gulation 13, which mentions the cleanliness of the craft, has never been thoroughly efflc icious. Perhaps it is not easy to enforce, in oases where Mr. Falloon has beaten Mr. Kemp in one the family uses the sampan as a domicile. No. same towards the final of the Chess Champion-17 forbida any sampan man to refuse a passenger ship of the Colony. Another game has been commenced, but was adjourned. Five games, in all, will be played.
Mr. A. Seth having been appointed Registrar, the post of Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court is to be taken by Mr. J. H. Kemp, who is presently sitting as Second Magistrate at the
Police Court.
Tea experts from India as well as Ceylon
The Committee of the Hongkong Cricket have recently been visiting Formosa as dele-Club has been fortunate in getting Mr. A. B. gates of Tea Planters' Associations, to whom the Lowe to succeed Mr. Ward in the office of results of enquiries into the production of Secretary to the Club on the latter's retirement Formosa Oolongs are being reported. The at the end of the next month. reports to the Indian Association are not being published yet, but we notice that the Ceylon expert (Mr. Kingsford) says in one of his reports:- A very large proportion of the teas shipped are of poor quality, the very high priced teas are due to fine plucking, the most favoury teas to wank unpruned bushes with a very unhealthy and half-dead appearance. We have a good many photographs we took of tea in all conditions and districts. It is quite clear that there is no added favouring matter. Appearances and pungency seem to sell better than mere flavour. The plucking is either very coarse with a heavy proportion of two and three-leaved bangy, or very fine, but the latter teas have more appear. ance and not much flavour. The teas appear to be almost as fully fired as the average Ceylons, when they leave the country garden packed in bags, but they lose a further 10 per cent. of moisture in the hug firing which, of course, increases the cup colour of a sample, but does not appear to improve the flavour. Values appear to vary considerably from year to year. 1902, on value of invoices exported. 8d. last year 7d.
case.
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The Far East has always been an Eldorado of the peculating Russian official and the dis- honest contractor, and the story that Dalny was. if possible, to be destroyed by the Russians, in order that no unsympathetic contrast, should be made between the real value of the buildings and the sums paid for their erection. is quite a likely one. Foreigners from Port Arthur and Dalny are full of stories illustrating Russian "squeezes." Russians accept the fact with that calm pessimism which is one of the Oriental traits of the nation. Here is a typical A contractor, an honest man in his Way, was engaged to make some hundreds of waggons for the Russian Government. The first fifty were completed. and the con tractor took them to the commissarita yard. The official whose duty, it was to receive the waggons looked at them and then walked down the line, putting a number from one to fifty on each. He then asked the con- trac'or to lunch with him, entertained him nobly, and, after the meal, suggested that they should and look at the other fifty waggons.
go The contractor declared that he had no more ready to deliver, but the official told him that he was mistaken. They went together to the yard and walked down the other side of the line of waggons, the official marking them from fifty to a hundred. The official then suggested that the price of the second fifty waggons should be divided between the contractor and himself. To the query: "Did the contractor accept?" an astonished "Of course! was the
answer.
The death of Mr. Charles Walter Sneyd Kynneraley, C.M.G., a retired official of the Straits Settlements Civil Service, has already been reported by cable. By the mail we learn that Mr. Kynnersley died in bed suddenly. He, who had seen thirty-two years' service, returned to England only in May, and was staying with a friend in Wimbledon. The cause of death was valvular disease of the heart and angina pectoris. An inquest was held and a verdict in accordanos with the medical evidence was returned.
There are at present 16 European vagrants in the House of Detention. a record number. They are mostly stranded sailors, who loaf round town protending to look for work. They get to square meals at "home"-one shortly after fix in the morning, and another at 4.15 p.m.
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The weekly plague return shows a gratifying decrease. due to three days clear of plague. The number of cases was five, all fatal. This brings the number for the year so far to 488, of! which 4733 were fatal. There were no cases of other communicable disease last week, and the plague return for the forty-eight hours ending
noon on the 15th inst. was nil.
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Mr. Sorabjee Dhanjeebhoy Setna, a member of the Parsee community of Hongkong, has just received from the R.A.0.B. Grand Lodge of England (by cable) the second degree." Mr. Setna is the first
Parsee to join the Order, and the local King Edward VII" Lodge is rather proud of him There was a dinner at the Hotel America last night to celebrate the occasion.
Mr. G. P. Souza, writ ́s us, calling attention to the confinement in small cages of the puppies at the bird-shops. He considers it a case for the S.P.C.A. We have been to see the two shops he mentions, and do not consider there is sufficient to call for interference. Mr. Souza expresses a desire for some report of work done by the Society. So far as we remember. the
Society's annual report is not yet overdue.
Mok Ching Chu-n, the Lyndhurst Terrace "truth speaker," who was convicted for playing on the superstitions of a foolish woman-obtain ing money by false pretences -begged not to be put in stocks in a long coat. It would be an insult to the gentry of China. What have you got to do with gentry anyhow? asked an officer. The man was allowed to divest himself of the garment, however.
The Kobe Chronicle has done good work in persuading the Japanese to eliminate unesthetic advertisements from their landscapes. It very neatly advocates the discouragement of a similar blemish from the Hill at Kobe, by suggesting that visitors seeing it would deny to the Japanese the possession of the artistic taste with which they are at present rightly credited. Imagine our Peak at Hongkong disfigured with huge advertisements,
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Mr. Harold Clarke, junior partner in the engineering firm of Messrs. Carmichael and Clarke, after lying ill in the Civil Hospital for nearly a week with typhoid, following an attack of puenmonia. died on the 18th inst aged 32 years. Mr. Clark was a Eiverpool man, formerly employed on the steamers Knight Companion and San Cheung. He was married here, and began business, about eighteen months ago. He was a popular member of the com- munity, and his untimely demise is regretted by numerous friends.
anywhere between the north point of Hong- kong and Hung Hom point on the east; Belcher's Bay and West Point of Stonecutters Island on the west; Shamshuipo and West Point of Stonecutters' Island on the North." This seems to exclude the man-o'-war anchorage. May sampan men refuse to convey pass ·ngers thither? If so, there will be times when the shore will resound with sailorish remarks. No. 20 is a valuable addition to the regulations, its omission in the past having permitted a lot of annyanoce.
A trivial case (that is how The Union puts it) occupied the time of two Judges in the Supreme Court of Hongkong recently. It appears coolie carrying a bamboo obstructed the side. path to the detriment of one Wai Chung, who preferred su information against him. The Magistrate dismissed the information, where- upon the complainant took the case to the Supreme Court. For him was the Attorney- General, instructed by the Crown Solisitor; on - the opposite side was another lawyer. Judgment was deferred. We do things differently in Shanghai; if a native carries a bambo or bundle on the sidewalks he is told by the Police to get into the road and that ends it. (The difference lies in the fact that the Hongkong coolie is a British subject, with all the heritage of liberty a Briton enjoys. The Shanghai coolie is an outlaw, with no ene—not even a temperance journal-to say a good word for him.]
MISCELLANEOUS.
General Baron Yamaguchi, who commanded the Japanese forces at Tientsin in the Boxer He was pro- troubles, died on the 7th instant. moted to the rank of Viscount on the 6th.
Mr. Segawa, the Japanese Consul at New- chwang, who withdrew from his post at the outbreak of the war, is returning to Newchwang. and left Kobe by the steamer årgo.
Many of our Shanghai neighbours are being pleasured by Sunday trips by water to Woosung An hour's breathing of the cool sea breezes each way, a suitable hotel at the far end, and the opportunity of seeing the shipping, have made these excursions popular.
Mr. Alfred Stead is vastly more amusing than his famous father. After writing a book with a title that was not “ Five Minutes in Japan," and numerous articles couched in an authoritative tone that even "Professor Chamberlain never assumed, Mr. Alfred Stead had a new idea, to persuade prominent Japanese to write on Japanese topics in which they were particularly interested. The result of this sensible idea is probably a useful book, but Mr. Stead's manner as "compiler and editor" of advertising it (and himself) will not help to sell the book. When he says "nobody can be. more aware of its faults than myself," he- reminds ny, of that illiterate maid-servant for good-natured mistress was writing At the end of the message, asked: "Anything more, Bridget!” mum. Ye might put in please ixcuse bad writing and spelling.
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omissions and its
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