and Li, Partridge and child, Mestre, Tnverarity 'Tue marriage of the EniperorKuangHsi which is appointed to take place in a few days' time, is not being surrounded with favourable omens, and it will surely require all the skill of the Court soothsayers to prove that they selected a really auspicious time for this important event. the famine in Manchuria, Shantung and the Yangtse provinces grows worse daily, as indeed it was known would be the case; and the accounts we receive are every day more harrowing, showing as they do that the subscriptions of foreigners in China and the liberal contributions irom Hongkong, the Straits Settlements, London and elsewhere, are only a drop in the bucket compared with the distress that is crying for relief. he fire in the Palace was taken, we know, as a sign of the displeasure of Heaven; but this the Empress appears to have assumed as a personal warning, and she has according ly stopped the work that was going on in the preparation of a palace for her own retirement, when she finally gives up the reins.' Now we have news of the death of Prince Im, the uncle of the Emperor, and brotiter-in-law of the Empress. His reputation has been that of a scholar, and he does not seem to have taken any part in politics, but his death within a few days of the Emperor's marriage, must be a serious shock to the Imperial family. But the eat weight for a long period on the mperor's mind has been the breach in the Yellow River; the most strenuous efforts have been made to close the breach; no expense has been spared the best men have been set to the task, and at last the most rising statesman in China, Wu Ta-cheng, was ordered from his port at Canton and put in charge. He has been in regular telegraphic communication with the Emperor, who has been constantly enjoining on him the absolute necessity of completing the work while the water remained low. As will be seen from the Pekiny Gazette of January 28th and 29th, whatever assistance be asked for
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.