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Her Majesty's Consul, Canton, reports that on December 16th last he brought to the notice of the Viceroy a piratical attack on a Hongkong fishing junk at Ping Hai, some fifty miles N.E. of Hong Kong.
In this case five men were killed and others wounded, and the junk stripped of all valuables.
He informs me that since November last, that is in three months, no less than forty-seven cases of piracy in the Canton waters have been reported in the papers. In several of these cases life was taken, and it may almost be said that a reign of terror exists on the waterways of the Two Kuang.
Cargo boats are afraid to travel at night or to move about except in company and trade is becoming to a certain extent paralysed.
The Viceroy is always ailing and it is difficult to obtain an interview with him. Her Majesty's Consul has repeatedly addressed him on the subject of these piracies in the strongest terms, but...