may be regarded as ended, at: least for the resent. The troops are now returning, ing disbanded with all the usual peril to life and property. Throughout the plain the soldiers are enjoying a sort of Dick Turpin life, and even in the capital carry on their burglarious raids witl fearless audacity. Not even the daugh heads of several who have been decapitated nor the fulminations of Imperial proclamation curb their lawlessness. They have liberally helped themselves: to the necessaries of life without money, without price, and carried their depredations into the y mes and pillaged in broad daylight the ron of the magistrate's wife. But such is life in China;~ unblushing' plunder in every, circle, The great palliation is not riot-law or noble justice but. the opening of the fountains of the heavens. A drenching rain and knee-deep: mud on the streets are the great safe-guards at the present time, highway robber even though he be one of the yaméw-ranners, is no match for muddy streets and soaking rain. So there are compensations for everything, even the dirt on' the streets. Recently an open sewer saved a foreigner's life; so one might say " Blessed be dirt." venture to suggest another beatitude and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.