(1) Kang I reports that according to information received from the acting district magistrate of Yench'eng five shops in the neighbourhood of Shakou were broken into and robbed on the night of the 13th of June. The magistrate gave orders to his subordinates to have the culprits arrested, and in the meantime, as an employe of one of the shops had died from wounds received while attempting to resist the robbers, the owners of the jobs came and laid a joint complaint at memorialist's yamen, memorialist considers that robbery with violence is one of the greatest evils that can befall a district, and he has ever impressed on those concerned the necessity of keeping up the trainband system and looking after the police. The carelessness shown by the magistrate in that it was possible for robbery on such a large scale to take place within his district cannot be tolerated for an instant, and memorialist would request that he be deprived of his button and his case handed to the Board of Punishments to decide what penalty shall be inflicted.
(2) The Literary Chancellor of Hupeh asks that the Board of Punishments be the Brigade-General in charge of the three camps at Lan, to proceed in person with soldiers to the spot and repress any disturbances.
Shortly afterwards a report was received from Wen Kuang-chien, the District Magistrate, stating that in the 6th moon of the present year, Yen Vu-chuan. head of the trainbands at Ch'iaochimng, had arrested Yen Ssu-shun and three others, members of a confederated band of evil-doers, and had sent them to the Magistracy for trial. While their case was in process of investigation it came to pets that at about midnight on the 23rd of July a band of evil-doers several hundred strong crowded into the yanéw and, notwithstanding the resistance offered by himself and his subordinates, forced their way in and set fire to the buildings, breaking open the Prison doors and releasing the prisoners, i Huan-wen, a head of the trainbands and ten or more runners were killed in the encounter. Tien Hsing-yuan, lieutenant in charge of the troops attached to the magist, Was severely wounded. When the scoundrels took their departure at day break he and his subordinates succeeded extinguishing the flames. Liu Fu-hsinj report confirmed the magistrate's statement On receipt of this information memorialist issued instructions to the troops in the adjoining districts to be on the look out for any fugitives from Hstip'u and directed the Provincial Judge to appoint a deputy to investigate the matter thoroughly, Th titer palected. Sac ttle duty fae thet what the magistrate had stated was substantially true, that thirty-one chien of the yamen bad been burnt down but that the official seal and archives had remained unharmed and the townspeople had not been interfered with. Six of the prisoners out of the seven released voluntarily surrendered themselves into the hands of the authorities, but the seventh is still at large. The detachments of troops sent out to scour the country succeeded in capturing some twelve men whose complicity in the affair was clearly established. In order to prevent delay or the possibility of any escape these men were after conviction summarily executed. Heavy rewards have been offered for the capture of the remainder of the gang and the magistrate has been granted eried of one month within which to fect their arrest.
19th September.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.