The Hu Pao gives the text of a Petition to the Hongkong Government by the "Hwa-on Kong-sze" on behalf of the Chinese merchants interested in the trade with California, Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands, in which 100 houses are said to be engaged. This trade, it observes, more intimately concerns Hongkong than does the trade with Singapore, Saigon, and Manila, which more affects the Chinese ports of Swatow and Amoy. It pays British and American vessels from Hongkong to San Francisco and Australia, at least $1,500,000 a year for freights, and one-third of that, or half a million dollars a year for return freights, and many thousands for stamps to the Revenue Office at Hongkong. The action of the U.S. Government in prohibiting Chinese from landing in Californi which appears likely to be copied by Austra i ill be ruinous to the Chinese houses in trade, and will thus re-act on the neral trade of Hongkong, the Opium rade, ete., and the petitioners therefore humbly beg that the British Government may be moved to communicate with the A tralian Colonial Government and also with the U.S. Government, and to use their authority in the one case, and their good vfices in the other, with a view to the preservation of the rights and privileges to Chinese merchants provided for in the treaties of 1868 and 1880 between the Chinese and U.S. Governments, The Comptroller of the Imperial Household at Peking has sent an order to the "Wen-hwa" firm of jewellers inside the Tsung-wen gate to detach twenty skilled workmen to make a magnificent Court crown or tiara for the Imperial bride. These have been coming to their work in the precincts of the palace every day since 2nd Janay The tiara is in three stories, the ground-work being of gold, the cap being of Siberian winter sable fringed with vermilion garnished with strings of pearls several hundreds in number, and topped with the feathers of the golden pheasant. It will, it is said, take ten days to com: plete.
There is a wide-spread belief in the power of some animals to take other forms, as the fox can take the form of a young and beautiful girl, rats can change to bats, sparrows to tree-frogs, kites to pigeons, Fire-flies are transformed, according to popular belief, from rotten plants, and there are numberless other transformations believed in; but hitherto, although sharks have been known to change to tigers, there
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.