The following is a translation of a pro-Governor of Hunan, dwelling upon the clamation by H.E. Ch'en Pao-chen, advantages to be derived from the construetion of telegraph lines in the province, and exhorting the people not to be wrongfully influenced and destroy the telegraph lines {and poles now being erected connecting capital of the sister province of Hupeh. Changsha the capital with Wuchang, the j According to private letter from Changsha, dated the Bth instant, it is tha' apparently acknowledging the value of telegraphs and that they will not be made to interfere with the people's graves 'The game was-well played, as the score j and private property of the gentry and shows, by both teams, and only in one' yiterwti, the construction of the line innings did Shanghai get decidedly the best j had been going on apace, without the it, which may be attributed to the ciehtest hindrance on the visitors being out of practice. inhabitants where the new The score by innings Ede eS mtal was pass; whereas, when in 1891 an attempt was made by the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration at the request 21310 0 0 0 0~ 7 Missionaries. TOE Roa We ioo chan eanest 0 0 1-16 Shanghai. telegraph poles within the borders of the The names of the players and their frontier town of Lichou, the inhabitants. positions were I the place rose en masse and so badly in-
:|jured the work escort that they had td flee for thole lives, party and mili abandoning many thousand taels' worth of telegraph material to the tender mercies of the infuriated mob. Several live ce. Were lost in this affair and a certain local provincial graduate, or chujén, who was accused of having given countenance to the innovation, was also sacrificed to the fury of the bloodthirsty mob, led by the bigoted gentry and literati of Lichou. We now give the translation of the A Proclamation for the information of all concerned, issued by Ch'en, officer of the Premier button, ex officio Vice-President of the Board of War and of the Court of Censors, Governor of Hunan, Commander-in-chief of the territorial forces under the command of the Brigadier-Generals, ete., and Chief Comptroller of the Tribute Grain and Army Pay Departments of Hunan, The telegraph has been in operation, under the auspices of the Throne, throughout all the provinces of this empire for many years. Every one who has used it acknowledges the benefits. accruing' from this triumph of science. In former times it took days, and even months together, to transmit a letter and message from' one place to another; but with the introduction of the telegraph such things can now be sent to their destination within, a few quarters of an hour, or a few hours at most. Of late years all the provinces of the empire and such prefectural or district cities' as possessed commercial importance, ete., are connected with each other by the telegraph, which is a clear proof that did it not confer the greatest. benefits and_ facilities on the people, the use of it bringing advantage in-scoad of harm to the users, the telegraph. would not have spread over the whole country in this manner. All possess the telegraph line with the sole exception of Hunan. In the 17th year of the reign of H.LM. Kuang Hsii (1891) an attempt was made to inaugurate the telegraph within the province of Hunan also. The route chosen was through the sub-prefecture of Lichou on account of the secluded nature of the place. Telegraph poles were erected and Connected By wie as the work proceeded, with the object. of connecting with the provincial capital of Changsha. There was another way of doing so and this was by making a submarine cable, but the land line was cheaper and for reasons of economy the latter mode was selected by the government. But the ignorant inhabitants of the sub-prefecture, in their apprehension that the construction of the land line over their territory would be productive of harm to their cultivated fields, ancestral graves, and their own domiciles, arose en masse against the innovation and obstructed the further progress of the fine. Hence the venture was perforce made to halt midway. We have been compelled to acknowledge that while communication is rapid in the other provinces Hunan alone has to endure slow transmission of letters and messages. Hence when matters of vital importance, such as warlike operations or famine relief, happen, or that the provincial government or gentry of Hunan have matters of vast importance at stake, even although use is made of the telegraph lines in the sister province of Hupeh, the time lost in traveling through Hunan is already very great, to the detriments of the interests involved. For instance, when the province was visited by famine last winter and th sufferers were in utmost distress and in urgent need 6f food and assistance, owing to the lack of funds in the provincial ex chequer, it-was necessary to send special messengers overland to Hankow, and from thence despatch messages to the various Ristrese, Within ten days of the despatch provinces appealing for aid to relieve the
of the above messages money came flowing in by telegraph from all parts of the country as faras Hankow, but here the money
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.