́ ́ April 20, 1903.]
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THE OSAKA EXHIBITION.
What is the Exhibition like?
That is what most people ask, and expect an answer off-hand. But it is a question to which there is no answer, for no single description can suffice, any more than it could to the simple
demand we sometimes receive from home, “Tell us all about Japan."
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT:
MISCELLANEOUS.
By a fire which occurred in a Chinese timber- yard at Tanjong Rhu, Singapore, on the night of the 2nd inst., damage was done to the extent of between $20,000 and $30,00. The property belonged to Tham Ab Fuk and was not insured.
The Secretary of the Panjom Mining Com- The Exhibition like whatever the visitor pany advises us that he has received a telegram wishes to consider it it may be an illustrated from the mines giving the result of preliminary encyclopædia or an auction catalogue, a mere list crushing of ore from Swah up to the 9th instant, of samples with numbers and names, to those wh ch gave a yield of 64 ounces of smelted visitors who have not understood how angold for 115 tons of ore, equivalent to 11 dwts. exhibition is to be enjoyed. Or it may be a 3 grains per ton, the value being $2,600, wonderful world in itself, a place where one can live for days and days, exploring and finding ever more and more to interest and charm.. That is how I take it, and that is how to enjoy it.
17 at.
To express it in a nutshell, the exhibition is a replica of Japan, prefecture by prefecture, each trying its best to be more attractive than the rest. Most of the great exhibitions in the western world have been primarily, enormous holiday gatherings, and the craving for amuse- ment has influenced the whole spirit of the undertaking. From the Colinderi s Earl's Court in 1887, down to the "World's Fair" at Buffalo last year the exhibits formed rather a mere background, while the forem st. features were the games, side shows. pastimes of every conceivable kind just as the world renowned Aquarium at Westminster drew enormous crowds for its concerts, none for its fish. Now, the Osaka Exhibition is not like that. It is not a conglomeration of fun and frivolity, but an exhibition. Perhaps there will be entertainments later present there are none.
navigation, came very near sealing the fate of A Japanese crew, entirely ignorant of the schooner Alice Kimball which reached San Francisco from Honolulu last month. So helpless were the Orientals that the captain and cabin-boy had to manage the schooner almost exclusively themselves, the result being that on one or two occasions she came very near being lost.
Mr. Kearley, M.P., has been informed by Lord George Hamilton that His Majesty's Govern. ment had at one time under their consideratiou, of bestowing an international medal upon these in consultation with other Powers, the question who took part in the defence of the Legations at Peking. This medal was not in any way to take the place of such medals or decorations as each State might think well to confer upon its
absence of unanimity among the Powers' con. own nationals. In consequence, however, of an cerned, it was finally decided to abandon the proposal.
A special commission will leave St.) shortly to take over the control of the Eastern Railway, on which regul be opened in the month of July next.
Hotel des Wagon Lits, Peking, Ld.,
The capital of 200,000 Tls. for the Grand over-subsorib d. The plaus, which are by M. of extension, and building operations are to be Roisin, bave been considerably altered in the way commenced forthwith.
The British Ambassador at Berlin, on behalf of the King, has presented Captain Laus, commander of the German warship Iltis, with the Order of the Bath. Captain Lans was entertained to lunch at the British Embassy, It will be remembered that the Illis took a prominent part in the capture of the Taku forts in June, 1900, when Captain Lans was seriously wounded.
Last month there were sixteen Europeans and double that unmber of natives under treatment at the Hanoi Hospital for rabies. Bix Artillery officers succumbed to the disease. It appears that the disease was communicated to a dog belonging to one of the officers by a pariah dog, among whom the disease is reported to resident is at present at Saigon undergoing be very prevalent. A well-known Hongkong treatment for supposed hydrophobia.
Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria who is now at Peking has had audience with the Empress Dowager who assured His Royal Highness. of her earnest wish that the friendly relations with all the foreign Powers should be maintained. His Royal Highness was after- wards presented to H.M. Kwang Hau in a The chief feature of the interview, says the Peking and Tientsin Times, was a remark of His Majesty that he would greatly like to travel.
ALswering Mr. Schwann, M.P., in the House smaller chamber. the season, but at
of Commons last mouth, L rd Cranborne said
It is a strictly and characteristically Japanese Exhibition, arranged in a Japanese way, for Japanese visitors. Instead of being classified industry by industry, one section for cotton textiles, one for silk, one for brasswork, one
for leather work, pottery carpentry, metals, and so on, the industries are all mince-pied into one huge lot chopped up into tiuy compartments labelled with names of the pre- fectures. It is the same with non-Japanese exhibits;
all the rest of the universe is bunched together unclassified, a packet of boue collar-buttons side by side with the latest specimen of printing-press, Singapore tiger-.. skins exhibited next to Noble's dynamite, Nestle's milk, and Edison's latest 40-b.p. gramophone. The one classification “foreign" covers everything, and there is us idea of orderly and intelligent arrangement of like with like. It is bewilderingly miscellaneous.
One attempt to sectionise, namely the apportioning of a special building for machinery, resulted in the provision of a vastly inadequate space, and two-thirds of the exhibits are in other buildings.
In other ways the visitor is reminded, at every end and turn that it is a Japanese Exhibition pure and simple. Though a most laudable effort has been made to label everything in English as well as Japanese, it is very far from complete, nearly half of the exhibits being more or less a mystery to a foreigner; and, seeing there are about ten thousand Japanese visitors to one foreigner, the wonder is that it should be worth while troubling about for igners at all. There never can be very many of them; and for such a handful, they can adapt themselves to Japanese conditions. Japan Gazette.
A Peking despatch to the N.-C. Daily News, dated the 4th inst. say-His Majesty the Emperor proceeds to-morrow morning at 4 o'clock to the Temple of Agriculture to perform the ceremony of personally ploughing a furrow in the grou ds of the said Temple, after which His Majesty returns to the Palace to visit the Empress Dowager and take breakfast. His Majesty will then leave the Palace at 5 o'clock for the Machiapu railway terminus and await the arrival of the Empress Dowager at the Yellow-draped Imperial Kiusk; at Machiapu, and then embark on the train with der Majesty. for the Western Imperial Mausolea. After performing the necessary sacrifices and worship at the mausolea, Their Majesties will proceed to the Imperial Rest-house and transact State business.
no information had been recoved from Mau.
churia as to the Boxer movement and anti- foreign feeling, but His Majesty's Consul- General at Haoków had reported that he had received trustworthy information of a threaten- British Vice-Consul at Tientsin also pointed in ed movement în Kansu. A report from the the same direction. His Majesty's Chargé d'Aff.ires has warned the Chines › Government, and the Wai-pa-wa had stated in reply that they had received no corroboration of the news, and that the reports had probably arisen from movements of disbanded troops ia Kausu.
According to the Cablenews of Manila, the mysterious disappearance of $50,000 gold from the steamship Zafiro is still a mystory and the matter will be aired in the Hongkong courts as 60011 as the interested parties can be assembled in this city. Representatives of Messrs. Warner, Barnes & Co., the Chinese consignees and others in Manila who have an interest in the missing funds will probably leave on the Zafiro in order to be present when the case comes np. It was learned that the steamship line will claim that the money never was placed aboard the vessel, while of course the shippers will contend that it was. This is the salus status of the case as has existed ever since the loss was discovered, and the court to be convened will try to bring to light more definite information on the subject and fix the responsibility where it belongs.
London has addres-od a very s rong despatch Mr. Arycsbi Akira, Vice-Consul for Japan in to his Government on the subject of male practices by Japanese import merchants. Ac. cording to this despatch, a Japanese firm occupying a high position in Japan asked an English firm to invoice its goods some twenty or thirty per cent; below their real value, and even demanded that blank invoices should be furnished. The proposals were based on an assertion that the common practice in Japan is to evade customs duties, and they were backed by a very unequivocal intimation that failure to comply would involve loss of custom for the English firm. The latter, not accustomed to do business in such a manner and apprehensive that these menœuvres would bring di-credit on Anglo-Japanese trade in general, laid the matter before the Japanese Consulate and suggested that suitable steps should be taken. It is added that many epistles of a like tenor are on file, and that their holders are willing to submit thom for Consular inspection at any time. Of course the effect of this in creating distrust of Japanese merchants can scarcely be over-rated.
On the 2nd inst. at Singapore, Capt. C. J. Mattock, master of the 8.8. Amara, responded to a summons issued at the instance of Chief
Boarding-Officer Dennison, to explain how in a recent voyage from Hongkong he carried as passengers two hundred adults and a child in...... - excess of the number allowed by the ship's licence. The fact was admitted. Mr. Brookman remarked that the case was a bad one, and imposed a fine of $5 for each passeng rin To this was added a fine of $50 imposed on Cap excess, the aggregate amounting to $1,062,30."
tin Mattock personally, and the costs, 50 cents, the whole figuring up to $1,113.
The Governor in Council having decided that the resumption of a portion of the remaining portion of Inland Lot 71 (including the kitchen backyard, rear wall and the rear part of the house No. 19, Cironlar Pathway) is required for a public purpose and private negotiations for the purchase theroof having failed, the said portion of the remaining portion of Iuland Lot 71 con- tailing an area of about 396 square feet will be resumed by the Crown for a public purpose at the expiration of four months from the publica- tion of notice, and that thereupon such compensation in respect of such resumption will be paid as may be award d in the manner pro- vided by the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance 1900.
The Customs Gazette containing the stat's- tical returns for the last three months of 1902 is now published. It is interesting to note that the number of vessels of all kinds which entered Canton during the quarter was 968, showing an increase of 275 compared with the same quarter for the year 191, representing an increase in tonnage of 114 758. The import and export returns are not totalled but the general tendency of the import trade has been unfavourable though there are certain very noticeable excep tions. Indian yarn, for instance, is represented by 25,564 picu's as against 5,529 piculs in the corresponding quarter of last year. The only other noteworthy increases were in tin plates and lead (in pigs), kerosene, and particularly rice and paddy. The la'ter is returned at 1,961,190 picols as against 54,151 pionis last year. In the export returns the most notable item is the enormous increase in the export of fans of all kinds, the export being 5,876,06) pieces as against 319,545 in the correspondit g quarter last year. The revenue for the quarter
as 64),49
,497 Uk Tls. as compared with 568,747 1901, and 427,53) in 1900, -
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