154
By balance from last socount
CMA.
By transfer from working socount 1899
*1800
44, 44.89 193, 40.19
$237,884.58
DEPRECIATION and RepaIRS ACCOUNT.
Dr.
To balance
F
0,
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Tientsia is in the wake of Shanghai as regards a swimming bath for the ensuing summer. The club is to be proprietary, and already numbers one hundred and thirty six; three hundred $25 shares have been takou up.
The building will be located close to the Waterworks and Recreation
To repairs, renewals and improvements during 16,046.37 Groand. The current year is also to witness 68,183.19 the erection of (half of) a permanent Anglican Church, and a new commodious grand-ständ at $84,229.56 the Race Course, to say nothing of an annex for infectious cases to the Victoria Hospital, which was erected in the Diamond Jubilee year. 64,229.56 The brick-and-mortar growth of the British 2^,000.00
and French concession, during the last five $84,229.56
years has resembled Jonab's gourd. Tientsin would be unrecognizable to any one who had been absent a decade.
Cr.
By balance from 1898
By transfer from profit and loss account
1
TIENTSIN NOTĀS.
[FROM OUR COBRESPONDENT.]
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$
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Tientsin, 16th February. The pessimistic fears of natives and foreigners alike bave not been justified by the events of the New Year. So far is Kwang Hsu from dethronement positive and final that the Legations bave been notified that the usual New Year audience will come off next week, Last year the ceremony was omitted ou alleged account of His Majesty's health; this yea it is probably coming off as the best possible advertisement that Kwang Sen as still a living entity though a political and regal nonentity. The absurd rabbish that has been flying round Peking and Tientsin during the past six weeks as Court news requires emphatic contradiction, and the audience to the foreign ministers offers the best means of dividing it. Hongkong readers will do well to discount heavily the Peking news of native correspondents sent to the Tientsin and Shanghai press. These gentle men are truthful and enterprising enough; it is only their judgment that is at fault. They mistake their fears for facts, and they too faithfully reflect the panic of their environment. When it is not Palace sedition, it is the Boxers or Big Swords. This week we had the parsi. mony of the Dowager as our Canard; last week it was the imminent death of Kwang Hau. Truly the old women of both sexes have been having a grand time of late: three days ago we, the foreigners of Tientsin, were to be attacked on the Lantern Festival by the I-Ho- (hüan who were swarming up into Peking and Tientsin in disguise. The alarmists had their reward in that they succeeded in raising the fears of a few women and many children, as a matter of fact, in both cities. The first full moon of the new year passed over with less than the usual display of urbane rowdyism collected. tur city has a fairly big of hooli. gans but the Taotai notified by proclamation that all the well-disposed would do well to abide by the traffic rules or stay at home, and the result was that the usual processions were very tame affairs. Last new year one or two of our German neighbours were up in rickshaws to see the shows, and were hustled about by the roughs and police, not qua foreigners, but qua richsbaw-riders in congested streets. They resented it and there was a big Bow-street case next day. The Taotai kindly sent a note to the foreign consuls, begging them to notify their nationals to keep out of the city for the fes- tival days, unless business was urgent, in which case
he would pro ide protection. Some asinine critics construed this sensible notice as a confirmation of their worst feare. To sum up the position of afisirs in Peking as briefly as possible-dead quiet, but possibly much of this is due to the fixed custom of the
New Year Trucs.
Locally there is little to note. The French Concession and the British Municipal Exten- sion (New Settlement) have both decided to ex- tend the mains of the Water Works; and the French are again thinking of the electric light.
The Germans have now equipped their Volun- teer Corps, and the defence of the port is strengthened by the addition of sixty odd well set up and well drilled fatherianders. They made their first formal appearance on the occasion of the Emperor's birthday, and made a first-rate impression in their neat and serviceable uni. forma.
Later,
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[March 3, 1900.
the patrol, it is rather quaintly provided, shows any fear and lets the thief escape, he shall be punished as a warning to cthers. Any person who carries arms and walks about in the street shall be arrested and brought before the proper anthority.
Owing to the numerous piracies in the Can- ton and West River districts the Commissioner of Customs has, upon consultation with H.E. the Viceroy, ordered that all the boats shall be registered and numbered, that guaranties shall be found, and that their captains shall keep a strict watch on all the passengers so that thieves and pirates may be promptly detected.
[FROM THE CHUNG NOOI BAN PO."] All the shops in the Tan-Po and Pak-Lai market places, in the Fa-un district, have been closed since the 17th instant on account of the An edict was issued in Peking yesterday robbers demanding blackmail from them under offering a reward of Taels 100.000 for Kang threat of burning and plundering the shops in Yu Wei alive or dead. It is here a subject of case of refusal. The shop people, being ex- much speculation how Her Majesty's Govern-tremely afraid of the robbers but unable to com- ment will regard this edict, as the Reformer is ply with their request, were obliged to close now on British soil. It is regarded here as a their shops, so that business in these markets is direct inducement to crime in a friendly coun- now at a stand-still. The circumstances have try; and if anything fatal happens to Kang, the Chinese Government will find itself in the invidious position of being accessory (to crime) before the act. Before the informal sanction of International Law grew up, these rewards were part and parcel of high international policy, Spain over and over again put rewards on William the Silent's head, and on Queen Elizabeth's murder, but for the last 250 years such proceedings have been reprobated by all Governments, though, Napoleon was more than once suspected of secret recourse to them. The ediot is said to have no limitations, such as seizure or death on Chinese Soil.
Kin or Chin Toutai's courageous memorial about Kwang Sen has bad prompt notice. Sheng Toutai has been ordered to produce his late colleague within 30 days, or to stand the consequences. There was was a fearful explo- sion of anger at the unprecedented daring of such a document. Kin is in hiding, but as every body knows, hiding is in reality impossible in China. If he is not found it will be because he is in collusion with many and powerful friends.
CANTON.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT,
Canton, 24th February, It is reported here that H.E. Li Hung-chang intends to institute a board consisting of several weiyuen or deputy officials, to inquire into the reason of the learness of provisions, and in fact of everything else as well, in the Canton markets a fact which renders the life of the inhabitants a very hard one-and to trace the sources from which the commodities come, with a view to despatching officials to the various localities where the food-supplies and other necessities are produced, to buy them up and to sell them at a reasonable rate. Orders have been given to the Provincial Treasurer and to the two generals in command of the native regiments to take the matter in hand at once. The step would be a most excellent one, as if properly carried out it would relieve the pre- vailing waut caused by high prios and scarcity
of money,
But on the other hand it opens a door to an. other form of squeeze; for instance, the weiyuen and other patty officials in charge of this matter would arrange to buy the coarse provisions at cheap rates, charging to the government some. thing over and above the actual price, and then sell them to the people at a high price, thus making a profit from both sides. The Chinese h.ve a saying "while the two ends are starved the middle grows fats."
On sccount of the numerous robberies daily taking place in Canton, H.E. Li Hung-obang has given orders to the Commandants of the different regiments to keep strong patrol in every street; each street is divided into several beats, and each boat is to be patrolled strictly by soldier for four hours, and then another will take his turn, and so on during day and night. Upon being an alarm given the soldiers are, it is laid down, to give chase and surround the thief or thieves, and who- ever arrests a thief will get a reward. In case
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been brought to the knowledge of Viceroy Li Hung-Chang, who at once sent 500 soldiers. under the command of a military officer named Pak, to restore peace. On the 21st inst. the soldiers met a large band of rob- bers on their way back to headquarters after ́some successful robberies. Fire was exchanged between the two parties, but the robbers, being out-numbered, took to fight, and twenty-two
were taken alive and have been sent to Canton
for trial.
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H. E. Li Hung-Chang has received lately a telegram from the local mandarins in Chiu- Chau district to the effect that a rebellion has broken out there, and asking for reinforce- ments. In reply the Viceroy has sent troops under the command of a military officer named Wong-Loong to cope with the rebels.
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The fantan gambling honse in the prefecture of Kwang Chow (which includes fourteen dis. tricts) have been farmed out by a certain mer- chaut who has to pay an annual rent of 720 000 taels. These fantan houses require licences from the farmer at the rate of forty and twenty dollars a day for the first and second class respectfully. in addition to the usual blackmail to the officials, gentry and yamen runners, who now only receive twenty per cent. of the black- mail paid to them by the gambling houses in former days, the remaining eighty per cent. going to the farmer. It is said that forty thousand out of the seventy two thousand taels are employed to defray the expenses of suppressing the robbers, throughout the whole province.
It is reported that the farmer of the Wai- sang monopoly has applied to the Viceroy ask. ing to be allowed to issue lottery tickets modeled on the Macao lottery ticket on payment of certain annual revenue to the Government. This application is under consideration.
#
As copper oash is in great demand in Canton, where a dollar only fatobes from seven hundred to eight hundred pieces as against the one (thou sand and one hundred of former years, the Viceroy ban ordered cents weighing two mace and four condareens to be minted.
It has been notified officially that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has graciously permitted the Penang Volunteers to adopt as their badge the Three Ostrich Feathers, with the motto Ich Dien or Eich Dụn, the crest and cognizance of the Princedom of Wales.
The two Methodist churches at Nanchang, Kiangsi. have new 750 lb. bells, whose tones peal- ing out over the city are quitean innovation from the usual order of things. Strange as it may seem, not a word of objection has been offered by anyone, either to the spires being too high, so as to injure the fengshui, nor to the bells ring- ing out over the city. We are surely living, says a correspondent there, amongst an unnsa- ally temperate and well-disposed class of be- ings. We attribute this good disp sition on the part of the people to the great friendliness
of the officials.
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