A Censor, named Hsii Chia-ting, makes strong representation concerning the gulations allowing for special reasons either a temporary or a perpetual increase the number of the successful candidates at the public examinations of any province, This favour has for many years past been regularly accorded in return for pecuniary contributions of a certain amount to military funds or other objects of general importance. The practice came into use at the time of the financial difficulties caused by the Taiping rebellion, and it has been made use of ina special degree by the people of Szechuan, in which province a large addition has been made to the number of graduates, The memorialist holds that the system has become entirely productive of evil, lending both to confusion and to corruption, He therefore earnestly prays that it may be altogether prohibited in future.
NEW MOUTH TO YELLOW RIVER, The Governor of Shantung memorial concerning the form: new mouth to the Yellow River, The current of this great stream, says the me-monalist, is checked by the tide which it encounters on nearing the sea. A deposit of silt is thus caused, and the land continues steadily to advance. It is less than forty years since the river adopted ite present course, and during that time the distance from T'iehmenkuan to the river-mouth has increased from fifty to one hundred and twenty /i. At high water the depth of the river is twelve or thirteen feet, and at low water three or four feet. A delta has formed with numerous small streams running between banks of hard sand, and the current at the month is very feeble. There isa place called Hanchia Yuan, situated below the Liching heights, only thirty-nine 4i from the coast. In its neighbourhood several embankments have been privately made and maintained by the salt worker Of late years, however, they have conti ually been washed away by floods, and are now in a very dilapidated condition. During the freshets of last spring the river broke out in this locality and made its way to the sea with a well formed channel. When the period of the summer freshets arrived, the river above Liching rose till it
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