ved and will be forthwith installed. Mr. Lai is not altogether unknown to foreigners and foreign affairs, and, so far as he has any reputation, it is good. For some time back he has been in charge of the Foreign Office at Chengtu, and does not take up the vacant post there in entire ignorance of Treaties and the rights of 30se directly interested in them. It remains to be seen if he will be an. improvement upon his predecessor, who is reputed to have been neither more nor less than an ordinary dry-as-dust mandarin of scholarly traditions of his country, and only capable lostineis, wholly governed by the inept of grasping a new situation when its edge threatened to cut into his own interests.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.