13th Jan, Ir is gratifying to see that the Siénpao, protected as it 1s by being domiciled within the limits of the foreign settlement, continues-to write with much independence and_straightforwardness of matters as to which there is a conflict between the officials and the people. On Taesday morning it printed a long and vigorous leading article on the subject of the course taken by the officials in reference to the late fire in the Nanking Road. (In that fire a block of houses was burnt down of which the most eastern one was occupied by a Cantonese furniture dealer, and the next by a mandarin who carried on an office for the sale of titles, the proceeds going to a Relief Fund. This office was completely destroyed, the mandarin who occupied it losing all his documents and accounts. This being a very serious matter, the mandarin declared that the fire broke out in the furniture shop, thus exculpating himself; but the furniture dealer, with the assent of his servants, declares that it broke out in the Relief Fund office, and that his stock was insured for very much less than its value. lhe popular rumour, for which we do not know that there is any solid foundation, is that the mandarin had been squandering the money paid him for titles in the pleasures of the Foochow Road, that his accounts were in an inextricable tangle, and that the fire came very opportunely, However, the magistrates of the city and of the Mixed Court came to the assistance of their comrade, declared that the fire began in the furniture shop, and carried off the master and: his cook into the city, where the latter has been abominably tortured to make him confess that the official version of the origin of the fire is correct.
After a preliminary recapitulation of these facts, the article opens with the usual conversation between the writer and a friend, and the writer gives certain frarmeuts of evidence on which the two magistrates ground their decision, and then gives the evidence on which the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.