February 2ist.—About eighteen months ago steps were taken for the erection of a mint to coin copper cash in Shensi. Chénan is the only district in the province which produces copper, but the quality is so poor that for coinage purposes it can only be used in combination with the foreign metal, and ruppliee of the latter had to be procured from Shanghai. During the time that the mint has been working, eleven castings have been turned out, representing a total of 19,800 strings of cash. The supply of foreign copper is nearly exhausted, and the officers who were sent to Shanghai to make further purchases report that owing to the stoppage of the Japanese copper works and other causes the price of the article has so gone up as to place it out of their power to procure any more. Under these circumstances, and in view of the fact that the experiment of using the native copper alone has not proved a success, the Governor asks permission to be allowed to postpone further coinage operations until foreign copper can be procured at reasonable rates, BANQUET AT THE TSUYG-LI YAMEN TO FOREIGN
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.