(Prom the Daily Echo of 15th August.)
At last the rain has come. It commenced yesterday afternoon with a heavy tropical thunder shower and continued throughout the night, Whether it has come in time to save the second crop of rice remains to be seen. The reports of fields away from the river side have been bad enough this week to lead to the supposition that the plants were beyond recovery. A further advance of forty cents a picul has taken place in the market price of the grain.
At soon as the Late fear of trouble passed away the authorities set to work to try to find and arrest those who were in any way connected with the posting of the inflammable placards posted about the city. Numerous secret yamen runners have been engaged in watching the frequenters of tea houses and opium dens where these placards had been seen; but, so far, we understand, no arrests have been made. A well known headman, the special object of their search, is supposed to have escaped to Chenchiu, a town between this place and Amoy.
Native trade is said to be in quite a stagnant state through the stoppage of credit usually granted by the native banks, but we think it quite as likely that the reverse is the case, namely that credit has been restricted on account of the unprofitableness of the trade, This, it must be hoped is only temporary, the result doubt of much competition. The native banks are too & to make the fullest use of the funds at their disposal where the risk of loss is not too great. The profits of these banks have been seriously curtailed by the official stop put upon the is 'a step taken by the ite the introduction of the small silver coins.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.