Chiefly that exchange is high, and explaining the cause in many ways, but adding one reason that has been overlooked. Of course the br', ks had advanced largely to Chinese, and im; Chinese wouldn't repay before the Sutticer Solstice settling-day. Quite true thai t'zoods" are dull, and prices below home r'i!:—as indeed they usually are. But hot... jut the export of sycee to England, thi, ins been going on of late At one time it was all the other way bullion used to be largely imported. During the last twelve months the process has been very considerably reversed; and some millions of taels worth of China's graceful silver coinage have gone to London. Not directly and openly, of course, but vii Hongkong, per coast steamer from Shanghai; #0 that outsiders shouldn't get wind of the dodge. "Twas far better than a high exchange; left a profit of 1d., 14d., and even 2d. on the tael. Now that may have something to do with the tightness of money. A few million tals more or less ought not to make an appreciable difference in China? No; but they do, in Shanghai! Means of communication are not yet so rapid and facile, that sycee goes flying about from place to place by express train, And a large drain from one district becomes felt, in case of exceptional demand. This export was one reason why the shipment of 3,000,000 taels to Yangchow, last autumn, was so much felt.
Great deal of truth on both sides, in what is being said about the British Consular service in China, just now. The junior members of the Service are underpaid; and yot money is wasted. But it is wasted in way altogether different from cost of salary. It is wasted in moving people purposelessly from one port to another—to the disadvantage of the Service, to the expense to Government of unnecessary passage, and to the cruel loss of the individual moved, who has perpetually to buy and sell furniture and incur the fifty expenses incidental to moving house. How many officers fill the same post they held twelve months ago? how many have been shifted within the last six months, and how many even within a month? If the exigencies of the Service demanded it, Government ought to pay every expense incidental to removal; but there is no such exigency, and they don't pay half; don't even pay passage money if the removal involves promotion, though it may take six months of the increase to make up the amount, And if there is no promotion, the junior still loses the incidental expenses of changing his home. And what is worse, everybody becomes dissatisfied with all this; and that is very bad economy.
And while the juniors are underpaid, the prizes within their reach are disappear-. ing. Men don't mind working for a small salary if they see a good prospect. But will it encourage them to see the Chinese Secretaryship, for instance, which was one prize, reduced from £1,200 to £800 a year? The service is not short-handed. Sir Rutherford was wrong there, in his evidence before'the Parliamentary Committee; there are more men- than are wanted at some ports, if mot enough at others, But itis mismanaged, and muddled, both at Peking and at Home.
Interesting anecdote that, told at the Asiatic Society's meeting Wednesday evening. Not there? Thought every one went to those august meetings. Well, the story was told of the Bell Tower at Peking. A great gun-founder had received an order from the Emperor, shortly after the city was built, to cast a bell which should be heard all over it. Everything being prepared, the Emperor went in person to see the operation, but the result was failure. Another attempt turned out as bad; the Emperor was highly displeased, the bell-maker at his wits' end. He was given a third chance, with the prospect of losing his head if he failed, and receiving high honour should ho succeed. His daughter recommended him to consult an astrologer, who declared that the bell could only be cast if a maiden's blood mingled with the molten metal. And on the eventful day, the dutiful girl horrified every one by jumping into the casting. One spectator made an effort to save her, but only succeeded in catching her shoe. The distracted father would have followed, and destroyed all chance of the desired bell; but he was held back, and the casting completed. The bell was finished, hung, and has ever since emitted, at the close of its reverberation, a sound equivalent to " My shoe"—in Chinese, of course. Truly the old Society is rejuvenating and will become interesting bye and bye. The tal is almost as good as one in Mark Twain's "Innocents at Home." He tells how a carpet-maker spent many years in trying to perfect a machine for making three-ply carpet out "$ anything, but fell in as he was on the point of accomplishing his purpose. No trace of him was to be found but 14 yards of perfect carpet of the long desired description came out, The dis-consolato widow would not have her spouse rolled up, but had a coffin made 14 yards long and set up on end, with an inscription which stated that here Isy all that was mortal, &c. Then there is a record of a man who fell into a sausage machine, and whose fate was only discovered by the appearance of a button in a sausage; and of a man who fell into a pond and was converted into eells (v. Ingoldsby Legends.) Evidently the same legend, springing'from a common source, and proving 4 common ancestry. But how coarse are the latter versions, as compared to the Celestial idea of the Virgin and the Bell.
This recalls another American tale, of the method once taken to persuade Indians to leave the telegraph wire alone. They were told that the Great Spirit would be angry if they persisted in tearing it down andtadti. in sauce of what would befal them, they ict given a bar attached to an electrifying machine, to lay hold. of, The wires were not troubled, afterward Couldn't this idea be applied to the Chinese who are always stealing the cable between Shanghai and Woosung?
Curious discovery that of Adams' Grave, in Japan. Future generations will have something of the same kind to say about a grave-stone lately erected in the Shang. hai cemetery, to the memory of a foreign workman in the Nanking Arsenal. The stone is erected by the order! "i at the expense, of Li Hung-chang himself, and bears a Chinese inscription to that effect, @utports. soocHow.
'The conspiracy lately discovered at Soochow, to which we referred last week, seems to have its origin with the Hunan soldiery whom Tseng Kwo-fan' had introduced in considerable number, into his viceroyalty. Po because the wince is rather or, Hunan seems to be a chief recruit. ing ground for the Imperial army. Wo hear of Hunan men wherever fighting is going on, and. the constant habit has inued them iti Jiémgrifor camp life, Tseng Kwo-fan's influences in Central China is well known, and it was not unnatural that he should choose men from his native province, to form his army. Whether to increase his influence, or from whatever motive, he had assembled a considerable force in hia viceroyalty. Several thousands of Hunan soldiers are encamped near Nanking, among other places; and there is Brovinoo; and a number of men hive ben disbanded, in the wayin which disbandment effected in China—some get money and some don't; some go home, and some become lonfers in the place where they have been soldiers. At any rate, the disbanding has occasioned discontent, and thi still in harness naturally sympathise their comrades. A conspiracy, having plunder probably as its chief object, seems to have been the result. A man was discovered in the Futai's Yamen, at Soochow, with the design of murdering that high official. A number of the ringleaders in the conspiracy were captured and execttod, and the gezrison was, novel outside the city. Here the matter ends for the present. The Chinese seem to think that there is no danger of an insurrection, nor any man of note among the malcontents capable of heading one. But there are. the discontented. and turbulent men, to follow a leader who covid command their confidence, if one should present himself—and an element of disorder in themselves. There is an uneasy feeling, therefore, though no immediate apprehension.
KIUKIANG, The Chinese have had several spectacles of late, which have afforded them sri, portunity of coming out of the seclusia Tra foul streela, to disport themselves 07 the concession.
was in honor of the deceased Chen-tsi, who The first demonstration they got 1 died some time in January, but, whose mains were only removed a few days 92% be taken to Hupei, his native province. The Chen-t'si—Hwang Kai-pang—bega his career as a private soldier in the army Taiping rebellion, the que the Tite of i salle evince, Be "is. played carried him rapidly up through the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.