On Wednesday night (13th) Mr. John Fryer delivered a lecture in the Temper before 4 numerous audiones, on the subject Hall of Chinese Morality, introducing a sumper of ina, intended to illustrate hi general Kennedy, U.S. Consul-General occupied the chair, and introduced, or 1 pared the way for the lecturer who, as ho said, hardly required an introduction to a Shanghai audience.
It would be almost imp: to do atything like justice to Mr. Fryer's discourse in the short space -at our disposal and a sunimary of a two hour lecture on a subject subdivided into many important hends only conveys a faint idea of the lecturer's efforts to ors on numerous points which must have been new to most of The lecturer pointed out that of morality taught by Coutudus is based to a very gr the Wu Lun, or five 5 namely the governmental, or rel tween sovereign and mi the paternal, between father and son; the conjugal, betwoon husband and wife; the frater between elder and younger brother; and th amicable Without th turer thought that China should long have followed the fate of other and nations, and crumbled to ruin, Moreover it was' his opinion that Chi ordinary longevity and numerical nation are mainly to be, accounted for by the many. excell in her wonderful and long tested He expressed his cui i Confucian system of moral was far as it went, and was highest value to the native, as' far it waa carried out,. But on the other hand t ious importes: tious in this moral code, the grent fault of which was that in it the chain of relationships began and ended with man ovey. The lecturer pointed out that the fell short in ud taught him to n practice of virtue the Divine mind. He brought m to the threshold of the gates of he: there left him hopeless, helpless, ness to grope his way as best be might. (Spplauso.) Ho earnestly reminded those péPtout aa the representatives of Christian heir daily life and inter ese, that foreigners were actuated by a feeling of that highest form of relationship, the keynote of which is the fatherhood of God, aa well as the brotherhood of man. (Applet Mr. Fryer thei med at length workings of the five relationships before mentioned, dwelling longest upon the well known filial virtues of the Chinese. Passing on to the amical relationship he described the extraordinary eacreduess of frioudal lih sometimes exists between a, where people go so far as take solemn vows of eternal friendship to each other, exchanging cards which were formerly sprinkled with the blood of the contracting parties, but which are now sprinkled with the blood of a cock killed for the purpose He then passed on to deal with the magic which wore painted by a Chi on which account he appealed to the audience to withald any hypercritical comments, on their artistic defects. Th illustrations attempted to embody some popular Chinese stories of jividusls famous for the practice of one of the virtues referred to in the lecture, but it must be candidly said that though' the ideal of the artist may have admirable the execution was inferior point of view und pecially to those who were unfortur obliged for want of room to si screen. Taking the entertain whole, the audience wor agreeable and improving although the latter part of the programme fell somewhat flat, partly no doubt, owing to the heat of the over crowded room and want of proper ventilation, which were alike STRAITS INSURANCE COMPANY, LIMITED, pho eighth ordinary general meeting of this company was held at its offices, Raffles Place, at noon on the 30ch March. It nounced on the previous day Seoretary of the Company had to not in that capacity, and w doe part of shareholders to hear w! the Board of Direction i ion doubtless acco: eat the meeting being fuller The Hou, J. Anderson was ing boon the permi mould take the report and accounte—in their hands the p ad. He stated nts general mooting of this company, on the occasion of presentation of accounts for the first half of 1886, he had ventured to express the hope and belief that the second half of the year would show more favourably under the item "claims and losses" which from January to June 1886 appeared to be exceptionally heavy! Ho thought the shareholders present would agree with him in thinking th pleasing features of the acco: at this hoped for reduction ments would show. Claime and! present account amount to $131,971.12, or one hundred and twenty-four" thousand and odd dollars lew than they wei firat half of the taking of nett po of about $11,000 over all, but wh borne in mind that the Compa: to face not only competition ki ever, but also reduced rates arising the attitude of some of the Home Companies towards bonus paying ones, this reduction in the Company' not be, louked upon as ini any falling away of its business. There were two holders mi observed that the item Branch' and Agency chargen". showed a considerable increase upon what it was for the previous half year; this was owing to the esteblisment of special branches at Shang hai and Hongk to the establish: and Melbourn incidental to carrying yy. Head charges" showed a decrease from the previous half year's account, this being partly due to the Straits Fire Insurance Limited bearing "its share of rise to the auditora qualifying th cate'attached by them to the pi counts, It would be observed that in their certificate, they made reference ion that might have to be made for bad and doubtful debts, The late Chinese cashier and collector of the company was December imprisoned for which collection and which he being unpaid had in reality beer paid to him, but the amounts thereof had not been credited to the company but had been ned by him, The outstanding no-leved to be due to the company wore called in so that the exact position of matters could be ascertained and it was then found that the Cashier was deficient to the extent of $33,000. rity Directors estimate will realize $10,000, and it is thought that something beyond this will be ros bhut the Directors were averse to giving figures which they did not have confidence in gotting in, Circumstances which had come to the kuowledge of the Directors in connection with this unfortunate matter forced them to the conclusion that lees to the Com; have been averted ud th the Company acted other wi me known to the Board, ho did. Tt had tr pired that he personally had had t tions with the Late Chinese Cashier involving a sum of about $10,000, (which was included in the above named $33,000) and this fact would som to have precluded the Secretary from exercising that careful clone scrutiny over the Cashior's doi which not only it was his duty to exerci but which the directors wore told was being done, The resignation of the Secretary was ne cepted, and this would explain to the Shareholders the advertisement which had appeared it the previous dey's paper. The Chairman he would be glad to which might occur them any furrity from the Into Oat man replied that $10,000 which the Directors counted on getting in was security of the Cashier.
Mr. £. G. Bernard enquired over how long a period of time the C: a gularities had been carried on tine weeks in tracing mat at an exact knowledge of how thin He though in reply to the last question that he might read the following extract bearing on the point, from the special report of the Auditor The table of figures which we forward herewith will show you at a glance when the abstractions commenced and how they increased as time went on. You will notice that nothing of consequence was kept buck till May of 1886, and, as the bills for May are not given out for collection till well into June there was obviously no large outstanding amount to attract either your or our attention or that of your staff when your last published accounts were audited and closed." 3 red
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.