October 3rd.—(1) A Decree. Ming An requests that a Sub-prefect transferred to his jurisdiction for military service may be detained in Kirin to be employed on special duty. Let the expectant Sub-prefect 'a0 T'ung-shan be sent to Urumtsi and handed over to Kung T'ang to be employed by him as he may think fit.
(2) Memorial from the Governor-General of the Hu-kwang provinces explaining that Lo Ta-chun, Commander-in-chief of Hunan, who has lately been dismissed for increasing the mumber of troops in his province without authority, forwarded the memorial reporting this step, to which the Governor-General's name was attached, without his authority. A Censor being requested that he and the Governor might be punished for appending their names to this memorial, and an explanation having been demanded from them, the memorialist begs to state that the Governor of Hunan supplied the Commander-in-chief with a copy of decree forbidding the increase of the provincial army on the ground that the present force was sufficient to maintain peace and order in the province. In reply to this decree, Lo Ta-chun wrote in very positive terms on the subject to memorialist, who, after some consideration, replied to the effect that the pay of regular troops being different to that of irregular, he would be acting contrary to regulation if he tried to increase his number of regular troops and place them on the irregular pay, and as the Imperial decree now received was couched in such positive terms, he could not venture to adhere to his original idea, and must at once disband the force he had enrolled.
A letter was also sent to the Governor informing him of the terms of memorial ist's reply to the Commander-in-chief. The next thing he received was an abrupt letter from Lo Ta-chun stating that he had forwarded by express memorial to the Throne saying that the provincial army was too weak, and that additional troops must be enrolled. A copy of the memorial was enclosed, but there was no request that memorialist should memorialise for him. The memorialist would humbly submit that, hitherto, when a memorial has to be presented in the joint names of the Govornor-General, Governor, and Commander-in-chief, it has been the custom in all the provinees, where the subject matter of the memorial is one of ordinary regula tion routine, to despatch the memorial first and to communicate a copy of it afterwards to the persons whose names are But when the question is one of ye importance, a consultation is always held by letter, and when a draft memorial has been drawn up it is forwarded to the Governor-General with a request to submit it to His Majesty, and it is then copied out fair and despatched. Now, Lo Ta-ch'un's scheme for the increase of his forees having been disapproved by Imperial decree, he wrote to consult tie memorialist, who distinctly refused his assent to his proposals, and then, instead of waiting for memorialist's reply, he hastily sends off the memorial, and does not supply the memorialist with a copy of the draft to which his name was attached, for many days afterwards, and never asked him to lay the matter before His Majesty. This was truly an astounding proceeding, and the memorialist_ was in the act of laying a statement of the facts before His Majesty when the decree appeared committing Lo Tach'un to the Board for the determination of a penalty. His calm assumption and wrongheadedness having attracted the notice of His Majesty, there is no occasion for the memorialist to dilate upon them farther.
He begs therefore to offer this ion for the information of Their (See Gazettes of 17th July and 17th September.)
October 4th.—(1) A Deere of Civil Office report that a the frontier proposes to establish an office in the capital for the transmission of stores, and has sent two officers to conduct the working thereof; and that he has written to the Board to apply for Our sanction to the undertaking. Ch'un Fo, Military Governor of Uliasutai, and his colleagues propose to establish a forwarding agency in Peking for the purchase and transmission of far garments and munitions of war, and to take delivery of powder, &e., from the Government stores, but before applying for the Imperial' permission they have appointed two Senior Assistant-Secretaries
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.