July 9th.—(1) Her Majesty the Empress orders that the seventh son of Prince Ch'un be called Tsai-t'n0. (N.B.—Including this child just born, the Prince has four sons now living, of whom the eldest is the present Emperor.)
FIRES IN_ YUNNAN, (2) The Governor-General of Yunnan and Kueichow reports that last January two fires occurred in his capital, in one of which more than twenty houses, and in the other ninety-five houses, were destroyed. Others took "place in different districts during March and April, in one of which more than fifty, in another two hundred, in a third one hundred and seventy houses were burnt. As he found by enquiries that all the sufferers were poor persons without means, he gave directions to the Board for the Restoration of Order" to take measures for relief, This has been done by the officers of the board, who, finding no funds in the Government Treasury, provided the necessary sum from private sourers.
NEW HOPPO APPOINTED, July 10th.—(1) Ch'ang-yn is appointed Superintendent of Customis at Canton, TAXATION OF LAND MELD LY BANNERMEN, (2) The Censor Ch'ing-hsiang represents the expediency of changing the existing law with reference to the taxation of land sold to bannermen, When the present dynasty entered China, grants of land were given to its soldiers in' many parts of the country. As in time some of these men allowed freely to sell their property to each became poor and others rich, they were
other. If any bannerman bought land from a Chinese, such limd remained still liable to Iandtas, and he was obliged to register the purchase at the otice of the magistrate of the district wherein it was situated, If he bought from another ban-norman land not liable to pay land tax, merely reported the purchase to the 1 or the left wing Custom-house at Peking, and paid the proper duty on the transac: tion, 'These rules applied equally to ban-germen in Peking and to those settled in the country. In the reign of the Emperor Trang Chih' Inv. was passed applying to the sale of Iand' from one bannerman to another in. the country but not in Peking, by which the buyer was required to register his purchase at the magistrate's ofice, and pay annual land taxon it in future, though it had not been liable to the tax before. Now such land is ordinarily acquired with the object of letting it to a tenant, and for supporting the parents and family of the owner by the rent received. But as the mite of rent now in Chihli, for exaniple, does not exceed six or seven tael cents per acre (mor), and the land tax amounts to just about the same sum, the purchaser, who is forbidden by law to'turn out the actual tenant or raise the rent, finds himself in the same position as if he had not any land at all. The consequence is that honest men decline to buy, and dishonest ones do not report the purchases they make, Thus the district magistrate's revenue gots no benefit, and the right and left wing Custom Houses lose the receipts they would otherwise obtain, The Memorialist, therefore, prays that the law of Tung Chih niay be repealed, and the system previously in force resumed,—Reseript issued previously.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.