Paris, 12th Dec, The situation of the Panama Company is critical. The shares have fallen to the rate of 150 frs. The Government is seeking a solution.
THE INDO-CHINA CUSTOMS TARIFF, The Under-Secretary of State for the Navy and Colonies has formed a cowmission to examine the customs tariff of Indo-China.
THE FRENCH BUDGET, Paris, 18th Deo.
The Chamber of Deputies has voted the budget.—Haras, BAST AFRICA, Berlin, 13th Deo.
Prince Bismarck has resolved to restore German authority in East Africa, either by taking over the Company's stations or by assisting the Company financially.—Singapore Papers, We hear that Mr. James H. Hart, who has just returned from leave, takes up the post of Commissioner of Customs at Tamsui, In a private note the writer of the letter from Tsing-chen-fu, which we publish in another place, says:—In this district at the present time are numbers of disbanded soldiers and some who have deserted after mutiny. The whole country round is just on the verge of famine and so lawless and desperate men abound, We who are missionaries here feel that we have not the protection which even an ordinary Chinese subject possesses and that our case is therefore the more serious, Some time ago a correspondent at Chinkiang mentioned that the drought had been so severe in summer and autumn in districts not far from that port. Since then the accounts from the parts alluded to have been worse, and we have received the following translation of a Chinese letter which indicates the nature and extent of the distress:—"This year the waters of the Yellow River have overflowed, and inundated the districts of Yun-chow, and Ssu-chow in the prefecture of Feng-yang in the province of Anhui together with the country bordering on the river Huai; and at the same time in the prefectures of Yangchow, Chinkiang, Hsuchow, Chiangning, in the province of Kiangsu, in the prefectures of Luchow and Chuchou, and in the hilly country below Nganking extending over more than a thousand /i the drought has become disastrous. The people have left their homes and wandered away from the flooded districts, and have betoken themselves to the ditches, and caves, it is to be feared, only to die there. The rice crops have scarcely a grain has bean harvested and the been destroyed by the drought, so that
Places that have formerly contributed. to young and old are mostheartrending. charity are now themselves needing assistance. These circumstances are well-known both near and far, and those who are not needless therefore to describe them ture eye-witnesses have heard of them, it is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.