Treau searcely be said that the prospects of the Chinese Empire are of the brightest at the present moment. Apart from the mortifications and possible perils which appear to be in store for the Government from outside causes, such og we have sought to draw attention to in recent articles, there is every reason to fear that the present year may be a very bad one for the people. The meteorological conditions are abnormal, and justify apprehensions of the gravest nature, Weare now getting well on in the mouth of July, and it may be affirmed without infringing accuracy that hitherto we have had no sammer, -none of that sunshine, that is, which constitutes summer properly so call June wasa month of violent and oogsant rain, Day after day the deluges poured down unremittingly, saturating the soil and ruining the crops in all directions. It was hoped that July would open more auspiciously; but although the rain no longer falls in such volume as before, the weather atill unsettled, the temperature continues comparatively low, the air reeks with moisture, and there is no power in the ann, It is just as though some accident had happened to the monsoon. In place of the steady blow from the south and southeast which under ordinary Circumstances sets in at the tarn of the season and continues with uonimportant vi ious till well on in the autumn, the wind veers round to all points of the compass from hour to hour, and cannot be depended upon for a single day. It is not surprising that under such conditions we should lear of distress from many quarters. The valley of the Yangteze is flooded fields, gardens, and villages are under water, and the food of the people is either rotted or yarned away, From Canton the accounts are if anything worse, as it is said that the mandations there are more serious than any that have occurred for thirty years or more, and subscriptions on a large scale are being set on foot by both Chinese and foreigners in the south for the relief of the sufferers, Hvon here in Shanghai rice has gone up in price, and the natives speak with considerable apprehension of the distress that seems coming upon them from the extra: ordinary condition of the weather. Yet, while people in the middle and south of China ato suffering from excess of water, the northern provinees are said to be threatened with a serious famine for lack of it, Te letter we publish elsswhero from our Moukden Correspondent reveals a most disastrous state of things. Something might always be done to relieve scarcity in the north supposing there to be plenty in the south: but when the rainfall is so unequally distributed as to.produce something like famine in both, though from previsely opposite causes, the condition seems desperate indeed, And it is just these natural disasters with which the Government appears to find it so difficult to cope, Famines and floods appeal to the superstitions beliefs -6€ rulers and people alike, and are regarded as a direct indi the Celestial dissatiefe duct of the sovereign and his advisers. The incidence of such disasters upon large tracts of country is a source of special anxiety to the Government from this cause, as it gives rise to disnffection, curtails the revenue from taxes, necessitates Leavy expenditure for re-of, and very seriously interferes with trade. Under such conditions as we have been experiencing for the last six weeks it is impossible but that imports should suffer, and the effects of this will not be long in making themselves felt by foreigners, There is of course still some Lope that the weather may take a turn for the better, and that there are yot some dry Lot weeks in store for us tempered by the southerly monsoon bat it is nevertheless trae that the conditions which now prevail are in most respects almost exactly similar to those which prevailed eight years ago, and then it was that the grant famine in the north caused such terrible suffering, and mowed down thousands of lives.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.