416
CANTON.
ans 3d [FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT. }
Canton 24th May,
di pored abTHE LOCUST PLAGUE.
It has happened frequently in the North, and in Kwangsi before, that swarms of locusts have appeared and destroyed all the crops of rice and wheat, and reduced the population to famine. But this year, about a fortnight ago, large swarms of locusts appeared in the district of Sun Hing in Sew Hing prefecture, and ate up all the rice orop and mulberry-leaves.
Ä-MILITARY MOVE.
The Black Flag general, Li Yung-fu, has had four garrisons of soldiers (each garrison consists of five hundred) under his command in Walohow taken away from him by order of the Viceroy on account of the rebellion in Kwangsi, and of his being too far away to be taken care of. So it has been deemed proper and safe to deprive him of his military power, and to give him one hundred soldiers only; the rest are given over to other officials. →
COMMUNICATION, WITH THE INTERIOR.
By order of the Viceroy, Captain Yang of the Shameen' guardboat charged ten cents on every passenger who travels into the interior by boat taken in tow by steam launch, and he put two-soldiers in each boat for their protection. When the soldiers collected this money most of the passengers refused to pay, and frequently there was s-row, This arrangement does seem satisfactory; so during the last few days some of the boatmen struck, and very few -boats: remained to ply between Canton and the interior. One boatman, Mak Yun Tong, was arrested and put in prison in Nam Hoi. The matter is how "settled and the boats have resumed their usual traffic.
THE SWATOW LEKIN, Some merchants in Swatow have taken a monopoly of the lekin taxes for $150,000 a year, and an office named the Chow Fun Kuk is established there to levy lekin taxes on imports and exports from the 1st of the 4th mo›n (8th May).
A NEW TELEGRAPH LINE.
It is stated that Shing Sun Wai, the super- intendentor director of the Hankow and Canton Railway, intends to establish a telegraph line to connect Ting Chow, in Fobkien, with Swalow?
2
SWATOW.
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Swatow, 22nd May, me fabuls. THE CORONATION.
A meeting, which was well attended, was held in Hs B.M. Commlate on the 19th instant, to consider the best means of celebrating the Coronation of King Edward VII. After some discussion it was decided (1) to have a special service in Church; (2) to drink, the health of their Majesties in the Consulate in the forenoon; (3) to bave a tiffin in the. Kackohioh Club; (4) should there be one, of HL, M, ships, in port, to give a dinner to the ship's company; and (5) to hold a regatta. in the afternoon. To carry wout the above programme successfully & Com mittee, consisting of five prominent members of the community and H. B, M. Consul, Mr. -Holland,ɔwas elected..
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FOOCHOW.
The following items are from the Foochow Echo of the 17th May-:--
The following notification was issued by Mr. E. B. Drew, Commissioner of Customs, on the ›10th instants
N
I have received to-day the following tele- from Paking despatched at noon-Drew, ¿Foophow jams notification; export duty on tes ill not exceed flys per cent, ad valorem, Spécial structions must be awaited before giving to reduction. 1. Despatch will follow with
Harta
B.F. Viceroy Hsu notified that he had been instructed ike oven the seals of office of I and exercise the functions a new officer is designated. et to have to report, the total Shoeen Kaisha chartered
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS, AND
June 21902.-
THE HAN CITIES REVISITED -
Hankow, 6th May.
steamer Yuko Maru, while on a voyage from Santu to Foochow..The steamer appears to have struck upon a sunken rook and wank in about twenty minutes in about 30 fathoms of
▲ FINE PROBBECT.CO water. It is more to be regretted that the loss It is a far cry from the days of De Halde, of life was serious, seven of the crew and one the first European visitor traveller who pene- passenger being drowned. Details of the even trated thus far inland, to the spring of 1902. are very sparse at present. Most valuable and About a hundred and sixty years ago, that great kiadly services were ren lered by the Commis-Jesuit explorer stood on the Hanyang hill, sioner of Customs and his colleagues at Santu, looked around, and voted the outlook " the finest Mr. Geddes alone being instrumental in saving prospect in the world, of its kind.” And it was many lives.
probably the outlook, in a general sense, rather than the mere view of three populous cities which impressed him. Did he not see that vast possibilities lay in such a unique'ÿ kituated centre ? - No artist would have given vent to such an exclamation; if pressel for an opinion, he would probably have adopted the formula of a certain art-oritio, and said “ very striking!" without explaining how it struck him.
The Triennial Meeting of the Educational Association of China assembles at Shanghai on the 21st instant and will be attended by persons interested in progressive educational schemes from all parts of China. Foochow will be represented by Rev. M. C. Wilcox; Rev. Mr. Peet; Rev, Brewster; Dr. Whitney; Mrs Plumb; Miss Jewell; Miss Partwell. Miss Bosworth and Miss Brown. Dr. Wilcox after the meetings close will take a trip to Peking and Cores with Bishop Moore of the M. E.
Church.
But to those interested in humanity, as afford- ing scope for moral or commercial influence, Da Halde's words would seem, by no means, to over estimate the situation. Indeed, the developments of recent years prove that the men of the West have come to adopt his words as their own.
HANKOW HAS BEEN DISCOVERED
The
His Excellency, Han Ying-kusi, the Viceroy of Min-che, received the Foreign Consuls and Commissioner, and a few other guests, at a banquet, at his Yamen, on Tuesday last. The feast was in foreign style, and was very by both merchants and missionary elaborate. During the feast, H E. addressed former has seemed rather more tardy than the the Consuls through his interpreter in latter, but is making up for that, in all con- pleasing w rds of welcome, and in clos- science, nowadays. A stretch of river-frontage, ing alluded to the recent edicts from the practically waste land, north-east of the British Throne favouring reforms, and expressed | Concession, is now bunded and built on to such his purpose to carry them into effect as far as purpose as might well startle, not only the ad- he could do so. Dr. Gracey, U.S. Consul, and venturous Jesuit Father, but anyone who Doyen of the Consular Body, made a fitting may have left the neighbourhood a mere reply, in the course of which he congratulated year or so ago. The frontage of a huge H.E. on his good health, the additional honours Western trading centre already stretches which had come to him twice since he came to some five or six miles, and the opportunities Foochow, in being called upon to exercise the for the inclusion of the hinterland are functions of Tartar General as well as those of practically unlimited. The plain behind that his own office. He also referred to the satis-river-frontage needs only to be protected from faction that his administration had given the the annual floods by a mere embankment, and representatives of the Foreign Powers, and the extension of the foreign city can go on into that it has given them pleasure to represent the far horizon visibl, from the Hanyang hill. the same to their home governments. He
THE HANYANG IRON WORKS
has had to pay all the pioneer's penalties, financial and otherwise. That mile of works could hardly be a hoped-for success, commercially, with the coal and iron fifty miles away, and with an enormous capital very literally sunk in converting a swamp of many generations into s foundation for heavy plant and massive chimneys. But all the more honour to their projector.
referred to the satisfaction it gave him lie immediately below the hill, and are a fine to know that a sincere purpose inspired H.E. testimony to the energy of a great Viceroy to carry out the reform measures which were who, acting the pioneer in a land of dead-lock, proposed, and believed that thereby greater prosperity would come to China. He referred to the times in which we lived, as the Com- mercial Age of the world's history; that the conflicts between nations in the new century upon which we had just ontered, should not be fought on land or sea, by fleets and armies, swords and cannon, but that it should be only the peaceful rivalry for commercial supremacy, Then, from the Western standpoint, the a healthy contest in which the best of each system of mandarin supervision of commercial nation should be exhibited, and by which all enterprise, with its inevitable accompaniment should be benefitted. Of the good results of of commission and "squeeze," is of course, as such rivalry, we had an example at hand, in inimical to commercial success as would be the the neighbouring nation of Japan. Within setting of purely commercial men to the literary the lifetime of the youngest person at tasks, which belong by rights to the scholarly this feast, that Empire had thrown open mandarin; Messrs. So and So, of Shanghai, its doors to the commerce of the world, may have founded a fine business, and sent and itself entered into competition with their steamers up and down the China waters, the oldest and best, and to-day in the industrial to the general advantage and their own profit, arts were rivals of other great manufacturing, nations. There is 'scarcely an article ne, ded' for the use of men, from a needle to a battle- ship, but they will make it, and make it well; as a result, the wages of its labouring classes have advanced to such an extent that their coolie beneath the Hanyang hill has been success. class are to day receiving six, eight, ten dollars fully converted into a foundation for iron per month, and eren higher wages whereas works; the bit of swamp south of Bedford, previously they received not more than three which first suggested the phrase to Bunyan, is dollars per month. He closed by proposing the now the property of the Midland Railway Co., health of H.E. During the feast the Viceroy's and has a line of rails over it; but, apless all band played the national airs of all countries the famous historians of Chins have been represented at the table.
#
The Straits Times, speaking of the movements of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank staff, says:— The changes consequent on these shifts bring Mr. V. A. C. Hawkins, formerly sub-manager at the head office to the post of inspector of branches, while Mr. H. E. R. Hunter of Penang has been chosen as his successor at Hongkon, Mr. Hunter who has discharged many import aut offices in the Bank-principally up North is as popular in these parts as he is in China, and Penang will be grieving his disappearance Per contra, Hongkong profits; but, in a matter of this kind, at Singapore our sympathies naturally lie with Penang.
but let the partners of that enterprise be set to write a Chinese essay or an English novel, and their success in those matters might not be glaringly conspicuous.
THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND
5
wicked slanderers, there has been, in the centre of China, for two thousand Ave hundred years, a Slough of Despond indeed, which is no lons hopeless in this twentieth century, A.D., than in the centuries B.C. A contemporary of Confucius and writer of a semi-classio saya :--- "The ruin of a realm comes from the depravity of its mandarins; and the mandarins are lost. virtue because of their fondness for, bribes;
witness and the latest scholarly "From the Court down to the smallest offic who is there that does not corel such things? The anc
hings?". The ancient Romans, and. came to the same conclusión as the
Dpres Te they fucius's friend, and howerar may have, allowed their
have come, they seem
STE
the
line st
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