July 22, 1896.]
not be rigorous in the application of the duty and should give certificates of origin permitting Tonkin mats to enter France at a reduction in the duty under the tariff general
CHINA: OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
and washed away 2,831 houses, besides flood ing several thousand others. Protection mea sures are being taken: Damages to the fields are great, and the water has not yet subsided. Other rivers have also overflowed, but the damages are not yet ascertained.
July 7th, 9.35 p.m.-By the floods already
Toyama are flooded to the depth of several feet above the floor and 120 others below the floor. The Jintsu-gawa has also swollen, having risen 11 feet. Several hundred houses in the western. portion of Toyama are also flooded, and the water is still rising.- From the Governor of Toyama-ken.
6 The Protectorate should, through the medium of the Chainbers of Commerce in France and Tonkin, call the most serions atten-reported, about 1,850 houses in the city of tion of French merchants to this important branch of trade. In carrying out this idea samples should be addressed to all French firms interested in the sale of the article. In course of time, when the trade has become largely extended, for instance, when it is three times as great as it is Dow,
& French merchant ought | to go to America, the market par excellence for mats, in order to see the importers of these articles and learn from them the tastes and the wants of the American buyers.
It appears from information received from a reliable source that any of the foreign firms at Hongkong interested in the matting trade are willing to buy as many rolls of mat- ting from Tonkin as are offered, providing specified dates of delivery are given. This would be, for the moment, an assured opening. Later, on the development of the industry, with the mat trade and the Annam cinnamon trade together, a direct traffic could be maintained by steamer between Indo-China on the one hand and France and America on the other.
It will not be without interest to say a few words regarding the industry and the trade in Japanese mats, which has greatly extended during the last ten years. What has been done in Japan could equally be done in Tonkin
He
In 1886 Mr. J. Crawford Lyon, a Baltimore mat merchant of the house of Lyon Brothers and Co., was struck by the artistic talents of the Japanese in weaving reeds, and he asked and obtained, not without difficulty, the support of the Japanese Government in his endeavour to improve that industry. In consequence of a cold winter only one crop a year is grown. (There are two crops in the Canton province). Mr. Lyon had therefore to give his first atten- tion to the cultivation of the material. chose several southern islands in the Inland Sea which were not exposed to the north winds, and under his advice the Japanese cultivated the plants. He then occupied himself in superintending the weaving and introduced many improvements in it. His efforts were crowned with success and he was rewarded by the Japanese Government. Since then, as we have seen, the trade in Japanese mats has increased in enormous proportions.
4
The initial difficulties which Japan had to wrestle with are not to be encountered in Ton- kin, as the climate is identical with that of Canton and would consequently permit of the onltivation of the reeds and rushes, and two crops a year could be obtained by using good ferti- lisers. To usefully undertake the industry and the trade in Tonkin mats it is sufficient to have an
initiative spirit, energy, and some knowledge of the matter. It is much to be desired that the Indo-China Government should give its support and encouragement to those of our compatriots who resolve to enter into that line and who would thus contribute to increase the value of our possession by extending in a certain mea- sure our commercial relations with the metro polis, Hongkong, and America.
ANOTHER DISASTER IN JAPAN.
THOUSANDS OF HOUSES WASHED AWAY.
While people have not yet recovered from the shock caused by the calamitous waves in the north, says the Japan Gazette, another disaster, in the form of floods, probably attended with great loss of life, is reported from Toyama and Shige prefectures, though the letter pre- fecture does not seem to have suffered much. The following are the official despatches, given in the Nichi Nichi's express, which if brief are quite appalling -
TOYAMA PREFECTURE.
July 7th, 7.36 p.m.-The rain has not ceased since yesterday, and several rivers have over- flown, breaking embankments and roads. The water is still increasing
IN SHIGA PREFECTURE. July 7th, 3.06 p.m.-Owing to the continued violent rain since yesterday the railway between Kinomoto and Yanagase has been damaged, and the traffic suspended since nine o'clock this morning. Damages are being examined.
July 7th, 8.42 p.m. The Jogwonji-gawa overflowed to-day. The embankments at Mase-guchi having collapsed, the water dashed into the eastern portion of the city of Toyama,
July 7th, 4.20 p.m.-The railway traffic be- tween Kinomoto and Yanagase has been re- opened.-From the Governor of Shiga-ken.
TIENTSIN,
[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]
TIENTSIN, 8th July.
The state of the Peiho is becoming critical, and if things are left to themselves and Nature proves obdurate much longer Tientsin will cease to be either a seaport or a river port. The river in front of the bund has shoaled up to a depth of five and a half feet instead of the normal twelve to fourteen. The deposit, un- like that of former years, is not soft loess-silt, but a hard sand which forms into stiff banks apparently unsusceptible to the effects of scour or artificial erosion. The shallowness is now such that even the lighters and lightest draft tow-boats are fairly beaten to negotiate it.
The steamers are still working their cargoes at Pa-tang-ke, about twelve miles below Tientsin, but with increasing difficulties even there. The congestion is appalling and to make matters worse, the lighter Swallow this week staked herself on the stump of a pile and made what little fairway there is still less.
The Municipal authorities and the local Cham- ber of Commerce are fully alive to the serious ness of the situation, and on joint account have agreed to get a professional man to obtain the hydraulic data for reference to some expert at home. We do not hear one word of the native river Conservancy moving in the matter, or that the Haekwan or City Tous have shown much concern. They are all probably trusting to the scour which sets in after the summer freshets..
64
17
Up to date the summer rain has come at in- tervals, but should there be a three days' down- pour on the hills to the west of Peking nothing can save the whole valley of the Peiho from a disastrous flood, as the constricted river bed is totally unequal to the task of carrying off any surplus.
been accompanied by Lient. Hongkong Garrison, The gallant Admiral for Elswick, and is now
Our chief source of information as to the course of the Kansuh Mahomedan rebellion' is the Southern Press. The official Chinese, if they have any news, are exceedingly costive in setting it about. Locally they have their own anxieties; the soldiers at Shanhaikwan have been going strongly for each other again, but happily have let the foreigners alone, although they have interfered with the train service.
H.M.S. Peacock has replaced the popular Linnet, which is off to the Behring Sea. The Peacock is of course at Tongku, thirty-five miles below Tientsin. Distance has, however, been no serious obstacle to cricket, in which the locals were easily victorious..
Peking
← HONGKONG.
The hottest weather of the season has been experienced this week. Considerable interest has been manifested in cure for the plague which Dr. Yersin, a French doctor, claims to have discovered On Thursday last the Sanitary Board met, and on Saturday the Criminal Sessions opened; The mu the Chinese constable has been caught nese territory and he will doubtless be tried by the Chinese authorities.
The opinion is growing locally that Li Hung- chang will return to his old billet as Metropoli- tan Viceroy on his return. He has wired out for 150 Double Dragons. These he proposes to distribute galore, as quae pro quibus. Nothing is known up here as to those specific orders which he is said to have placed with the Vulcan Works at Stettin; he certainly left China with no such power, but of course the telegraph could give it. It is suspected up here that the Peking officials are going to distribute their favours interna tionally re China's new armaments, that Krupp and Armstrong are to share alike re guns. Ad miral Dunlop has been cruising about the Gulf in the Nan Shui, visiting the various dismantled forta, more especially Port Arthur. He has
t
It is notified in the Gazette that Inspectors T. Duncan and F. Fisher have been appointed Inspectors of Nuisances.
4
At Raub, during four weeks ending on the 6th July, about one thousand ounces of smel gold were realised from 2,550 tons of stone.
H.M. gunboat Redpole arrived here from Amoy on the 15th July. The coolie trouble that port appeared to be over at the time she left.
There were no cases of plague reported on the 15th July, on the 16th there were three cases, on the 17th one case, on the 18th two, on the 19th two, and on the 20th two.
William Claydon, a steward on the steamship Amarapoora, was working in a cabin on the vessel on Saturday afternoon when he suddenly fell and expired. He had complained of pains in his head whilst in Japan.
The Chinaman who savagely attacked a pas- senger on the Kaisow, while on a voyage from Singapore to Hongkong, was on the 18th July sent to gaol for six months with hard labour by Hon. Commander Hastings.
At four o'clock on Tuesday afternoon Carl Fasque, second officer on the Danish steamer Ask, was taken ill and a doctor was' called to see him. The patient was at once removed to the Government Civil Hospital, where he died two hours after admission. The case is sup posed to be one of sunstroke.
The Hon. Treasurer of the Alice Memorial and Nethersole Hospitals begs to acknowledge with thanks the following donations to the funds of the Hospitals:
Jebsen & Co. W. H. Ray Scheele & Co.
་་་་
$25 10 10
In his report for last year Mr. W. E. Crow, Government Analyst, says-In connection with a charge of circulating counterfeit coins,' a number of 20-cent pieces (similar to those of the Canton mint) were forwarded for analysis by the Captain Superintendent of Police. The coins had a specific gravity of 9-689 and con- tained 45'52 and 52-90 per cent of silver and copper respectively. The specific gravity of a genuine Canton 20-cent piece was found to be 10-264. From information furnished by the manager of the Canton mint it appears that only 18 per cent. of copper enters into the com- position of the 20-cent tokens.
given
醬
Mr. W. E. Crow, Government Analyst, in his report for last year, speaks favourably of the milk supply of the colony. In some quar- ters an idea prevails that cows' milk produced locally is inferior in quality to the milk of cOWS' fed in England. The investigations conducted in the Laboratory in past years do not this contention. In an appendix are
Supp the results of the analyses of 24 specimens of milk from one of the largest dairies under European management in this colony samples represent the mixed, product of
The
large number of cows. The authenticity the milk in cach case can be proved. The non- fatty solids vary from 8.7 to 9.5, the fat from 3.1 to 4.2, and the ash from 54 to 75 per cent. These results agree with those obtained by the late Principal of the Somerset House Labora- tory and by the analyst to the Aylesbury Dairy. Company A comparison of the averag tained by these investigators and the results of the analysis of the Hongkong" mens appears at the foot of the table-ta case of the non-fatty solids, the constitue which the presence of added water is det and calculated, it will be seen, that are practically identical alysis adopted by the Somerset House, chemi has been rigidly adhered to in every instance,
The metho
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