(2) The Emperor publishes a decree enlogizing Mu-t'u-shan, late Tartar General at Foochow who died recently in Manchuri where he had been engaged i the army. The deceased officer had seen much active service both against the Taipings and in the North-West. He will receive a posthumous title, and his sons and his principal grandson will be presented at Court. A thousand taels are given for his funeral expenses, and the office concerned will report what other marks of favour should be bestowed. The coffin containing his body will be sent to Peking at the public expen A MARD-FOUGHT APPEAL FROM HONAN, (3) En-ching and Hsueh Yun-sheng resent their report on another appeal from nati, which they were directed yo inves tigate." The case is remarkable for the tenacity and perseverance shown by the plaintiffs, woman and her unmarried sister, who brought their complaint six times into the local courts, appealed once to king in the ordinary manner, and_ ti took the extreme step of petitioning the Emperor in person by stopping his chair while passing through the streets. The accusers and the accused were all members of the same family, and of the surname of Pfu, Tu 1882 a member of the family named Ch'in-sheng disappeared from his home, and no traces have ever been found of him. His sister Ai-ni, the girl who afterwards went to Peking' with the petitions to the Emperor, brought a charge of murder against a cousin named K'uei-ni, on the grounds that her brother had left home in the company of and by the invitation of the latter. She positively attired that she heard K'uei-ni call her brother The cousin as positively denied done so, and accounted for the missing man's disappearance by snying that he had absconded, because he had broken into the house of another cousin, T'ao-ni_ who had therefore prosecuted him for at-pted theft. Ench time that the girl Ai-ni's charge against the cousin K'uei-ni came into court, it was dismissed either as being groundless or for want of evidence. But at one of the trials it came out that the missing man had attempted to yet into Tto-ni's house in order ty sleep with the latter's motherjandT'ao-ni, who dared not for shame state the truth, but who was determined to be revenged, brought a false charge of attempting to rub. On the other hand, it was proved, though not without some trouble, that the disappearance had hapened a few months after this affair, which had moreover been settled by a money payment with the approval of the elders of the family, who wished to avoid a public scandal. "Still the women kept on plaguing the courts of justice, and very late in the day another member of the family came forward and said that one morning when working in the fields, during one of the intervals when the litigation was thought to be finished, the abductor K'uei-ni had confessed to him that he really had beguiled the missing man away, at the insti-Teo-ni had billed him with w knife, and tion of the injured cousin, T*ao-n
the two of them together had buried the body. K'uei-ni stoutly denied that he had ever said anything of the kind, and accused the informant of bringing a charge of patent improbability because of a petty spite. The two Imperial Commissioners were of opinion for various
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.