The re-survey of Formosa discloses the fact that much of the Iand is held in seigniories or manors. The early Chinese petty squatters had no titles for the land appropriated from the savages, and, as scun as it was cultivated, the powerful gentry applied for wholesale government grants, which thus placed them in a treat the cultivators as tenants-at-will.
The cruel and illegal punishment of slow death by hanging so as to stand resting on the tips of the toes seems to be extending, A thief was thus executed in Soochow the other day, and another case is reported from Formosa.
The Iand-tax for Hunan is about Tis, 1,200,000 and almost the full amount has been collected for 1886.
Floods have been reported from Urumtsi and Aksu in Sungaria, which is said to be a very unusual thing in such elevated regions. The Chekiang, Anhwei, Hupeh, and Kiangsi_ officials in Peking have re= done by floods, as from time described in resented tothe Emperor the grent damage these notes. Complaints of the great heat and of choleraic epidemics are reported to the native papers from many localities, Huk'ow near Kiukiang has been the scene of a tornado, coupled with a severe hail storm, which destroyed many human lives, besides cattle and House property.
The inhabitants of Hait'an, near Amoy, have published a protest against the pro: posed reduction of that naval and military station to a fu chiany's command, which, they say, will deprive it of independent power, and of the capacity to keep order in the neighbourhood. "At present the idea is_, to transfer the local military centro to the Pescadores. Hait'an was Koxinga's great stronghold 250 years ago, and the possession of this island enabled him to hold out many years notwithstanding his vicissitudes in formosa and on the mainland.
The two Imperial Commissioners who were sent to enquire into the state of affaire in Hunan have reached Wuch'ang on their way back to Peking.
The Shi Pao is quoted as authority for the statement that a Miao-tsz rising has taken place in Lung Chou,-—the frontier district just opened to French trade.
The three bridges built across the sands or mud to connect the Peit'ang forts have just been completed, and a distance of 100 i of the new railway line is sufficiently advanced to carry rolling stock.
As a punishment for certain political offences, a saint of Tibet was some years ago informed by the Emperor that his soul would not be allowed to return to this world; but, on the saint's death, the Emperor yielded to the solicitations of the saint's pupils, and allowed the soul to reappear in the person of a baby, on whose behalf the Manchu Residents in Tibet now apply for a resitutio in integrum of all the deceased saint's honours.
A Chinese merchant in Osaka writes a very sensible letter to the Shen Pao correcting the exaggerated reports of the late fracas, He says the Japanese authorities
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.