with a balance of $23.41, were $1,928.70}, and the year closed witha balance in hand of $12.87.
We have received from Mesers. Helly Walsh, Limited, Yokohama, a copy of Keeling's Guide to Japan, 4th edition, revised and enlarged by A.'Farsari. It is a handy little book of 164 pages, with index, that could be carried in the pocket withoutinconvenienceinthehottest weather, and must be invaluable to every tourist in Japan, It contains a number of routes of varying durations, with descriptions of the principal places worth visiting and of the sights that should not be missed and the legends, ete., connected with them. There is some general information about the empire, a chronology, list of religious festivals, weights and measures, distances, ete., ete., and hints for tourists, and ten well-executed maps and plans, The tourist who is going to Japan should read it before he woes, and keep it in his pocket while he is there, and the unfortunate even who cannot go will gain pleasure and information reading it. It might fairly take as its motto, infinite riches in a little room."
Reuter's announcement to-day that he was premature in reporting the abandonment of the Sugar Bounties Bill is a little irritating. The second telegram we take to mean that the Budget is passed as well as the Naval Defence bill; the son that has been born to the Princess Beatrice will be a welcome birthday present to its royal grandmother.
The native Life Saving Association at Minghong found the body of a coloured man floating in the river last Thursday near that town. The body was dressed in black woollen coat, and it was afterwards coffined by a benevolent institution.
We are informed that three Chinamen attacked a Japanese in Boone Road at 8.30 p.m. on Sunday. The Japanese had come out of an alley way in Boone Road partially drunk, and one of the three men called to him in Japanese. The Japanese called im and while there, one of the went up an alley way with the man who
three placed his hand over the mouth of the Japanese, while the other two took his watch and chain and his ring. The three then decamped. So far as we are aware, the victim made no complaint at the Police Station.
A small menagerie consisting of two deer, a bear, three storks, an owl, and a tortoise, arrived here on Sunday by the Fuyeie." The animals are from Corea and are to be forwarded to Hamburg for the Zoological Gardens there.
The Anchises arrived at Hankow on the 1éth at 8 p.m., and the Glamorganshire passed Kiukiang on the 16th at 1.30 p.m. The Kiangfoo passed the Glenartney at Olyphant Island at 4 p.m. on the same day, and the Moskwa at anchor on the Langshan at 7.30 p.m. on the 18th, and the Orestes off Lao Point on Sunday morning.
The Benledi, from Hongkong, arrived at Hankow on thursday morning, having made a fine passage. She left Hongkong on the 17th, so the whole voyage was dove in six days.
The steamer Crusader, having been purchased by the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, is now called the Tsukushi Marw and is commanded by Captain Will, an old employe of the same Company.
Our attention has been called to a pam-phier, in private circulation, on the present trouble with the medium of exchange, in which the writer argues that one standard of value for the West and another for the East cannot continue in-these days of widespread and intimate commercial relations. "'Bither the gold-using peoples will adopt the silver standard; or the silver-using copies adopt the gold, standard; oF the world adopt bimetallism." We observe, too that the London and China Express of Marck 29th quotes Sir David Barbour, the Financial Secretary of India, as saying, "The resent condition is not one of permanent equilibrium. Either there will be continuous progress in the direction of demonetising silver and substituting gold, or the world will revert to the old system of double legal tender." The question is of rave and immediate importance to all in hina and Japan, as well as in India; but what we can do here in the matter is not obvious. The bimetallists have been assisted lately by the depression of trade, which they have constantly attributed to the appreciation of gold. Unfortunately for them, trade is reviving, although the value of gold is not falling, and this tends to contradict their best argument, There is no question that the decline in exchange has promoted the export trade in China, and it is noticeable that the Chinese seem to be able, in the prices they pay for imports, to follow the rise in gold, at least in the staple articles, There was some idea that with the ratification of the opium clause in the Chefoo convention the work of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade had come end, but a perusal of the April number of the Friend of China will quite dispel the illusion. A more red hot number has never been published. From cover to cover it is full of denunciations and misrepresentations. When facts are not bad enough, hypotheses are made to serve. It isa remarkable thing that the missionaries who have been engaged in famine r have laid no blame of any kind on opium, but the writer of China and her Trouble knows betterthantheydo. Wedoubtnot," he says, "that in addition to the terrible pangs of hunger, myriads of poor wretches combat with the still more painful cravings for the drug to which they havebeon long accustomed." Having invented this suffering, he goes on to use it san argument that the' British tax-payor ought to relieve the distress in China. - Has the British-Indian government no duty devolving upon it in these trying times in alleviating dis, tress, which has been fearfully aggravated by its unholy trade in opium?" One Alfred $. Dyer of Bombay writes an article in which we find such sentences as this "Tt has repeatedly ocourred in the hia-tory of British rule in India, that millions of pounds of revenue obtained by cunning and threats and bloodshed have been more than swept away by the cost of preventible panics, wars and famines," and the editor of the Friend of China is so pleased with the article that he prints a portion of it again on another page as an extract from the Banner of Asia. The article by Archdeacon Wolfe of the C.M.S, is equally temperate, "The devil," he says, "could not have invented a more pernicious vice for the destruction of soul and body than this of opium smoking, and woe to the man who by word or deed gives any support or encouragement to the hell-born traffic"! Mr. Donald Matheson writes; "We are sending thousands of pounds to save the millions in China now dying of famine, but we have withheld our sympathy for the millions more, dying year by year in increasing numbers, from a vice which we have ourselves introduced among them thought he must know that, as a histo-tical fact, the British did not introduce opium smoking into China. People who believe that opium smoking is a curse to [China are as much justified in organising a crusade against it, as the teetotallers are in crusading against alcohol; but all sober-minded people must be grieved to see the crusade supported by such exaggerations and misrepresentations as we find so plentifully in this issue of the Friend of China.
At a meeting held at the London office of the P. & 0. Company on the 11th ulti-me, the formation of the proposed China Association was definitely decided upon, Sir Geo. Bowen, Sir R. Jardine, Sir A. Dent, Sir Thos. Wade, and Messrs. F. Barnes, T. Sutherland, M.P., P. A. Myburgh, Q.C., J. Swire, J. Whittall, Coxon, E. F. Duncanson, Albert Deacon,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.