Ina recent number of the Peking Gazette mention is made of a visit to Peki by an embassy of Tibetan Lamas. One tie members of the embassy arrived here on Saturday in the Tungchow on his way home vid Hankow.
"Pots and Cups" in the Foochow Echo recommend a plan for buying tea in China this year, which is sure to result in profit, if it is only carried out; but it is to be feared that tea-buyers will be deaf to the advice even of such appropriate prophets as "Pots and Cups." They (they write throughout in the plural number) take as their basis Messrs. Geo. White and Co.'s calculation that the total amount of China tea required in London this season is 90,000,000 Ibs.; and they propose that this amount should be thus made and they are convin are not exceeded, if the opening prices are on a safe and low basis, and if the teas are sent forward slowly and at proper intervals, the trade of 1888-89 will be a profitable one: and we feel justified in asserting that they ate right.
We have to thank Pere Chevalier, S.J., for the monthly bulletins for January and February last of the Sicawei Observatory, containing the usual ample tables and meteorological records. Specially mentioned in January are the extraordinary and unprecedented quantities of rain and snow which fell in the west of Kiangnan, in Hupeh, and the north of Kiangse. In the February bulletin, Pere Chevalier notes as very interesting the fact of the striking similarity of the curves of atmospheric pressure deduced from observations made ut the same times at Taku, Hankow, Sica wei, Swatow and Haiphong. " All present the same depressions, at the same time and taking the same forms, with the exception of certain variations due without doubt to local influence."
It is remarkable that though shipowners gnorally have concurred in saying thatthe four were unusually disastrous years for their trade, the acting chairman of the China Shippers' Mutual S, N. Ca., Limited was able to remind the shareholders that that Company had been able to pay a di dend and put something by to depreciation in every one of those years. In a recent number of the New York Maritime Register, the editor says that American shipowners have been grumbling just as much as their English. colleagues, and one shipowner writes that any man who invests money in shipping now will only carry out the proverb of the fool and his money being soon parted." The Register remarks on this, that it is an exaggeration to say that the chipping trade is at its worst, and that in reality it averages as much profit in the long run as any other branch of commerce. It is a most singular phenomenon of business life that almost every man believes every trade to be prosperous but his own, and finds that his own has seen its best days and will never ay the profit that it once did to energy and capital.". Shipping, it goes on to say, is one of the great branches of trade, and an absolutely necessary one. Really, the shipping industry has great advantages over others, inasmuch as it requires very special knowledge to succeed in it, and is therefore not so liable, for any length of time, to inordinate competition, as other branches are. On the other hand, shipowners have always been pre-eminent in their love and practice of grumbling.
The stock of copper in the of the syndicate at the end of March was over to take of the questions of the day in China; of 16 per cent. per month, for the present butit could do him no harm to learn by Boting production. The collapse of the ices are checking consumption and stimu-personal conversation with the leading syndicate would seem to be rapidly appeople here the views that we do take; liberty of action, when he has learnt our views, being, of course, left to him.
Advices from Saigon, according to the Prince Bismarck's action in the matter. China Mail, say that cholera was very of Samoa, as detailed in the papers laid by prevalent among the natives there and bad Titerfored with business, the boatmen being Mr. Bayard, U. S. Secretary of State, before the House presentatives, is unwilling to go into the interior, not a very pretty piece of business, In The China Mail says:—The election in consequence of trouble in Samoa, caused Cochin China of the deputy to represent the Colony in the Chamber of Deputies was by the German Consul, as part of a conceived plan to got the idands for Ger-fixed for Sunday, the 13th inst. We many, Mr. Bayard invited the English and observe by the Courrier de Saigon that the German governments to a conference at result of the voting was—M. Ternisien, Washington, to which Prince Bismarck and 482, M. Carubelli, 364, and M. Laurens, Lord Rosebery agreed. At the Conference, 212. About 100 votes were given for imthe German representative proposed that ible candidates such as General Bou-the government of the islands should be ger, Constans, Blanchy, Lo Myre de entrusted for five years to a person nomi-Vilers, &c. General, Boulanger got 22 nated by the Power having the largest votes, A second ballot is of course re-commercial interests there, which meant quired. M, Laurens, it is said, has retired handing the islands over entirely to a in favour of M. Carabelli, candidate of the German nominee. Bayard declined Extreme Left, who has thus considerable this, and pro} the formation of an chance of beating M. Ternisien, who was at Executive Council, on which all three the head of the poll at the first scrutiny.
Powers should be represented. The Con-The Rising Sun of the 23rd instant says ference adjourned, to give the English and that news was received from Corea by the Germanrepresentatives timote consult their 8.8. Orcuri Maru to the effect. that Mr.
P. governments, it jing understood that G. von Méllendorff had unexpectedly re-matters should remain on the island: turned to Chemulpo. His arrival was, we statu quo meantime. In violation of are informed, altogether a surprise, and agreement Bismarck d war against, various surmises are hazarded as to the the King of Samoa, took possession of his object of his visit. son, sent him as a prisoner to the The comparative figures of tea in Yokojeroons, and declared his rival his hams from the commencement of the season cessor, and Inter the German Consul to the 15th instant are as under suspended the native municipal government 1888, 1887. on the Islands, This was all in flat violation of the agreement upon which the Con-Arrivals... 1s. 33,550 Pls. 26,100 Settlements.. rin" 28,940, 23,55 ference was called. Mr, Bayard sent from 25 Washington on the 17th of January last a Stock 4,510 5, 2,575 The Japan Bail has a leading article on Mr. W. Keswick's recent letters to the English Foreign Office, on the subject of the monopoly of bonding granted to a wharf belonging to the China Merchants' S. N. Ca., which Mr. Keswick believes to be in reality still leased to s German firm. The Mail, while concurring generally with Mr. Keswick's remonstrances, objects to his celebrated and cutting question, in answer to Sir John's feeble explanation that "the German Minister had endeavoured to have the Associated Wharves included in the scheme," Why the German Minister and not the British Representative?" In asking this question, Mr. Keswick voiced the dissatisfaction of every British resident in China. "Great Britain still pays something over seventy per cent of the revenue from the whole foreign trade of China, and we go to the Circumlocution Office wanting to know why it acquiesces in our Minister's leaving our enormous interests in the hands of the representative of the nation whose share in the foreign trade is only 4.66 per cent? The Bfail explains that it is because Mr. von Brandt is of the diplomatic body. We have already explained, on the word of the highest authority in China on international law and usage, that there is no Doyen of a diplomatic body that does not communicate directly with the soverei; to whom it is accredited; and we have a personal objection to Mr. von Brandt as Doyen, though, or perhaps because, we believe him tobe one of the best German Ministers ever sent to Peking, since his nationals publicly informed us that he attended to German interests first, and merely made those of other nations secondary. We fully concur with one of the Mail's concluding suggestions that the British Minister, in order to keep himself an courant with' the views of his nationals on the subjects that come before him, "ought to devote at least four months in every year to visiting the treaty of which time fully one month show be passed in Shanghai." We have no doubt that Sir John Walsham is perfectly satisfied in his own mind of the views that we ought very temperate dispatch to Prince Bismarck, in which he complained that the course taken by Germany, "upon the temporary ae ecemeat of the conference," could not "be regarded as having been marked by that just consideration the ancient friendship between the United States and Germany entitled the U. S. Government to expect and added that the present position of aflaira was very unsatis-received in Washington to this despatch. Factory, Up ta April no reply had been
as the oil itself does when used, and the The use of oil on high sea is spreading following extract from the New York Maritime Register tells of " very ingenious invention for extending its use:—Wilhelm Meissel, second officer of the steamship Werra, of the North German Lloyd, has invented an oil rocket that throws oil over e area. The invention consists of the rocket proper and an oil colin with an exploding chamber. The colin is i of thin tin, soldered at bottom and top, and the exploding chamber is also made of tin and has a hollow tube reaching into the centre of the oil cylinder filled with powder, The rocket may be exploded under water. An interesting trial was made in November last, on a voyage of the steamship Werra, from New York to Bremen. Arocket a diameter of one and seven-eighths inches with anoileylinder four inches high and with
was fired at an angle of thirty degrees. It flew one thousand feet in front of the vessel and the cylinder exploded at a height of twenty feet above the water. The oil was distributed over an area of about two thousand feet. Another rocket, a five inch cylinder, was fired at an elevation of fifteen degrees in order to make it explode under water. The feat was accomplished and the oil rose promptly to the surface and was distributed over a vast area, 8 com tively smooth sea resulting wherever the oil spread. Experiments were also made in the presence of the imperial commission of Bremerhaven. From the deck of a steamship five large rockets were fired a distance of 4,500 feet and the oil covered an area of 2,000 feet. As soon as the oil had spread tthe rolling of the sea quieted down,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.