Fóbrdary 12, 1898.]
the port side of the denk was awash. The amount of the damage and the insurance. if any, are not yet known.
Shanghai, 27th January. The Kongnam was successfully pumped out and floated yesterday morning. She was towed down to the Shanghai Engine Works, where the necessary repairs will be effected.~N C. | Daily News
NAVAL EXPEDITION IN NORTH
BORNEO.--
A REBEL PORT CAPTURED.
[Special to "Singapore Free Press."]
Labuan, 30th January. H.M.S. Swift and H.M.S. Plover returned to Labuan last night.
These gunboats had been engaged on an ex- pedition against Talleh up the Membakut River. The rebel stronghold was captured, eight re- bels being killed and many wounded.
There were no casualties on our side. Talleh, the leader of the insurgents, suc- ceeded in making bis escape.
A later telegram received to-day announces that his head Has been brought in.
There is a general belief that Talleh is Mat Salleh's lieutenant.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE RËPORT
have come from afar—from 10,000 li distance it is but simple justice that the officials and people of China should sympathise with their diffenities and grant what aid they can. Judge then the pity of it, when we are suddenly informed that robbers bad murdered two missionaries within the jurisdiction of the magistrate of Chuyêhsian. We, therefore, hereby command that, in addition to the punishment demanded by law to be awarded to the perpetrators of the said outrage, churches in three different places and dwelling-bouges in seren places be built by us as a token of the Government's desire to atone for the catastrophe which has befallen strangers from afar. In conclusion, we hereby call upon Chang Ju-mei, the present Goverdor of Shantung, to exhort hie.subordinates to give full protection to these missionaries, and to give warning that if in the future there should again occur further outrages by desperadoes and bandits, the local authorities concerned shall be held responsible for the same, Obey 1
THE MANCHUKIAN GOLD MINES. Despatches received from North Manchuria state that the Tartar-General of Kirin province bas issued permits to a native syndicate for the developing of three or four newly-discovered gold deposits at Yenchikang, Kirin, and that the Tartar-General of Heilungohiang province bas also granted permission to the Muho Gold Mining Co., to erect now plant in a rich gold mine lately discovered some distance from Muho, the name of which, however, has not been given out.-N. C. Daily News.
THE SEOUL CHEMULPO RAILWAY.
Commenting on the above the Free Press says: Recent precedent to the contrary has been put aside and two British gunboats have been allowed to assist the North Borneo Com- pany in dealing with one of the rebel leaders. It is unfortunately not Mat Salleh, but it is at any rate the next best man that has been brought to book. The scene was the Membakut river, and a naval contingent of officers and blue jackets, from the Swift and Plover, in the shape of a boat expedition, was guided up to Tallen's Work on the Seoul-Chemulpo railway will be stockaded fort, which was rushed and captured pushed in the spring so that it can be completed with loss to the natives. Although Talleh got by autumn. Your readers will remember that clear away during the attack yet it appears last spring I mentioned the fact of the railway that, possibly by some of the Company's being owned by Japanese who, not being able Dyaks, he W88 followed up, killed, and to get a contract from Corea, got Mr. Morse to his head brought in for identification, do it for them. This statement was indignantly There is a fine orthodox Borneo twang about denied at the time by some who knew the actual this bit of head-hunting." Tallsh will now state of affairs. Recent items in the Japanese cease from troubling, and it is to be hoped that, papers leave, however, no further room for encouraged by the co-operation of vessels of the denial. I am, however, prepared to go further Navy, the North Borneo Government may at now and say that a large part of the stock is last succeed in laying hands on that arch disowned by the Japanese Government or by of- turber of the peace, Mat Salleh.
THE MURDER OF THE GERMAN MISSIONARIES.
IMPERIAL EDICT.
We (N. C. Daily News) publish below a translation of the Chinese Emperor's Edict," issued on the 1st instant, concerning the murder of the two German priests in Shantung province, which occurred in the district of Chuyê in the early part of November last :-----
floials of the Government.-N. C. Daily News correspondent.
THE PEKING AND TIENTSIN RAILWAY.
The Tientsin correspondent of the N. C. Daily News writes:-
107.
that the rate of fare is: higher than on the', older line. The Imperial Mail Service runs s specially fitted car, upholstered and warmed, and by paying an extra two-thirds fare or there- abouts, oue may travel in a good degree of comfort between this and the capital thanks to the Postal, not the Railway, Administration. The track has now been ex- tended beyond Fengtai to within a few miles of the gates of Peking and lately a tramway track "bas been laid quite up to the gate-thanks to the deter- mination of our German friends, who in conse- quence of a lady on a belated train being pre- vented thereby from getting into the city before the gates were closed, demanded that a track be laid and facilities provided by which access to the city could always be had before the closing of the gates, and travellers not be subject to the discomforts and dangers of Chinese inns, with no bedding or suitable food, when
traing are belated. No carriages are as yet on this line and I did not learn when they are to be put on-not till spring, possibly. It is hoped that before long the locomotive will take the cars to the end of this line, where the terminus should have been at the first.
It is now about eight months since I had the privilege of passing over the Imperial Chinese Railway from Peking to Tientsin. The lands. cape was then beginning to put on its summer In obedience to our commands the Board of adornment, and vegetation had begun to take Civil Appointments has presented to us its on a deep shading of green, but much of the report concerning the penalties which ought to country "through which the road passed had a be laid upon the officials concerned in the recent very desert-like appearance. Now that winter Chuyê affair. The, said report states that Liis on and the ground is bare of all vegetation, Ping hêng, Governor of Shantang, has placed and the brown trunks of the trees are denuded himself in a most reprehensible position, first, of all foliage, the outlook from the car windows by not being prepared to prevent the murder is doubly desolate and unattractive. And of the two priests at Chuyê, and secondly, for within the cars are cheerless, cold, com- having failed to report the outrage to the fortless. No fire, no cushions, not even Throne until the Tsungli Yamên was informed an attempt at the appearance of warmth or [from outside sources] of it and telegraphed comfort. The same utter disregard of the com. instructions to the said Governor to investigate fort and appreciation of the traveller which has the affair. Such conduct deserves punishment, prevailed on the Tientsin-Tangshan road from Li Ping-heng is, therefore, hereby degraded the first. It may be said that the Chinese do two steps in rank and ordered to be transferred not care for these things, which is true as shown to a lower post, a penalty which shall not be by this fact, that when this latter road was first permitted to be commuted or set off against opened the seats were provided with cushions. good conduct marks in the said Governor's Occasionally one of these was missed, stolen by official record. As for the said Governor's some one who had not been sufficiently watched, subordinate officers concerned, namely, Hei and the rest soon became so abominably filthy Liang, recently transferred from his post of that they could not be endured. So it was Taotai of the Yen Yi-Tsao-Chi Intendaney, found useless to provide anything but boards Shantung Wan Pên-hua, Brigadier-General for those who preferred dirt to comfort and of the Tsaochon Military Circuit; and Chao cleanliness. But it was thought that some Chêng chao, prefect of Tsaochoufu (where regard would be had to the feelings and habits the murders happened), they are hereby and desires of their foreign friends, and that cashiered of their several ranks but retained one car, or a part of a car, would be fitted with at their posts. Further the privilege to dis some little appreciation of their preferences ere seminate the religions of the various countries long on those parts of the road over which they of the West is accorded by Treaty, and when are continually passing, and especially between we take into consideration that these missionaries this and Peking, but there is no difference, save
The first survey of this Tientsin-Peking line| carried it along the great road to Tung-chou, on the highest ground and through the best of the country between this and Peking, locating the station near the West-South gate of the city. But the boatmen raised a great outory against this innovation, which they thought. would injure their carrying business, and for the same reason-supposed injury to the basi ness of the city-they were supported by the people of the city. Hence the present line of they made a great mistake, and that the rail- the road. Both these classes now recognise that way would have brought to them distinct ad- vexed at their stupidity. It appears, equally vantages, and they are therefore exceedingly stupid on the part of the Government to have changed the original plan and taken the road through a tract of low-lying country where chance of freight, and where it will require the there are no large towns and scarcely any expenditure of thousands of taels annually to protect the road bed against the overflow of the Hun (muddy) river.
MACAO.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.].
*
Macao, 3rd February, The reply I have to give to the writer of the letter signed W.Y.Z. in your issue of Saturday! last is as follows: In the Echo Macaense. Not 61, published on the 12th September last, is an article headed A letter from Shanghai," in which the following passage occurs" Y.- (meaning no doubt V. B. de Souza) took from the firm where he was employed the sum of Tls. 10,000, on five separate occassins, Tls. 2,000. each time, the first theft having taken place in July last and the last in April of this year. Accord- ing to the confession of the same all this money has been spent in gambling in the Manila lottery." The writer of the letter which appeared on Satur- day wants now to show the public how generous and innocent de Souza was in the case, he having taken all the responsibility upon himself in order to save the shroff from committing suicide! Who on earth could believe in such fantastical generosity P. Perhaps de Souza may have said something about the shroff also being concerned in the case, but any one of common sense will understand what his object was and that he simply wished to screen himself. Anyhow de Souza is in gaol to undergo his punishment, he having been adjudged guilty.
The Chinese New Year passed over very quietly, nothing extraordinary having occurred. The cula-cula tables supplied the principal excitement.
the
The days for the celebration of the fourth cen- tenary of the great Vasco de Gams have been fixed and are the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th of May. The programme, subject to alteration, is as follows:-Early in the morning 17th the Moute, San Francisco, and Barra forts will fire salutes of a hundred guns each, the church bells ringing in the intervals, the regimental band will parade the streets laying the Hymn of the great Vasco de Gaza, ca thanksgiving service, will be held at the Cathedral and masses said in all the other
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