April 20th.—(Court Circular). The woaring of the summer hat will commence on the 291 taut.
The Governor of Shantung reports that he is making every effort to despatch to Poking at an early date the full amount of the grain tribute for 1881. The total amount at which Shantung was assessed for that year was 305,443 piculs rice and beans included, and there further remains a balance of 1,175 piculs due on the 1880 account.—Reseript: Let the Board of Revenue take Not (2) Tfan Chung-lin requests permission to suspend tableta in several temples, the presiding deities of which have been instrumental in obtaining rain and averting hailstorms and other calamities. A signal instance of the interposition of the deities of the Nien-po Hien Temples is placed on record. On the first day of the year 1870 when the authorities were engaged in performing the usual ceremonies in honour of the Emperor, a body of Mohammedan rebela took advantage of the unguarded state of the walls to make an assault on the city. They found themselves confronted, however, by an innumerable host of supernatural warriors patrolling the wall with red lanterns in their hands. The rebels were struck with terror at the unnatural size and stature of their opponents and retreated with precipitation, whereupon the Chinese troops sallied out' and fell upon them, inflicting severe loss and securi period of peace throughout th hood.—The request of the Memorialist is, in each case, granted by Rescript.
April 21st,—(Court Circular.) The Governor of Shun-tien reports a rainfall in the Metropolitan District of over an inch (of saturation.)
Hsi-ching (FRA%) is appointed a Reader of the Grand Secretariat, Haichun ($434) is appointed Groom of the Library.
(2) Chung Proi-hsien, Director of the Court of the Imperial' Stud, submits a memorial deprecating the practice of perfor the services of metropolitan offici the Provincial authorities to apply points out that the number of ' expec! in each province is much large than before, and that among such a host there can beno dearth of available talent. Why then, he asks, should Governors be allowed to move officers away from their proper sphere of action in the metropolis to undertake loss familiar duties in the provinces? During the rebellion no doubt such a measure was often necessary, but peace has long been re-established and there is no reason for the continuance of the practice, Besides, it is often derogatory for a Pekingese official, a graduate of the Hanlin, for instance, whose duties require his constant attendance on the Emperor, to accept service under a Provincial Governor, His Majesty of course is pleased sometime: to confer a provincial appointment up. member of tie Hanlin, but in that ago the rank and title of the off who proceeds to a profit tion of the Governor occu position, retaining on the one hand his original rank and his connection wi metropolitan office, but at the charging the functions of a provincial official. Memorialist then adverts to the intrigues and favouritism which are inseparable from the system he is assailing, and quotes at length a decree of the Emperor Chia Ch'ing forbidding the Chief of Metropolitan Department on his tranter to a provincial Governorship to take with him any of his subordinate officers except those destined for the comm and of troops or the expedition of criminal cases. The Decree in question was issued in answer to a request of a recently appointed acting Governor-General of Chilli that he might be allowed to take a certain Censor with him to his new Emperor Chia Chi and Memorialist points out that a Hanlin graduate ranks far above a mere Censor, graduates form the subject of an increasing and yet requests for the transfer of Hanlig number of memorials from the provinces, in spite of the established illegality of such applications. He therefore prays His Majesty sternly to forbid future such applications, and meanwhile to direct the Board to draw up a list of all Hanlin officers and Secretaries of Boards who have within recent years been tranaferred to the provinces on the application ing that they may be one and all recalled Governor, and to submit a memorial pray-to Peking,—A Decree has appeared forbidding, in future, applications for Hanlin graduates or secretaries of Boards, and applications, except in general terms, for the services of officials stationed in other provinces. In a Postscript Memorial, the same ofiger observes that the inconsistency
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.