13th Sept. Ox Saturday morning the judgment of Taotai T'sai Chitin upon the protracted enquiry into the claim by Messrs. Beunerlz & Ca. against the Kiangnan Defence and Pay Department was made known, and in another part of this issue we publish a translation which we have had. pecially made. The mode in which the decision reaches the public is somewhat novel, for instead of the Court again assembling the Chinese text was circulated amongst the foreign and: native newspapers. Such a course may be regarded asa due appreciation of the utility of the Press, but at the same time it seems a distinctly novel proceeding, in a case which has already furnished some surprising material for the student of, Chinese jurisprudence. From a comparatively early stage of the hearing, which began in the Queen of Heaven's Temple and concluded in the Canton Guild House, it was fairly evident that a solemn farce was being enacted, in -which the British Chief Justice was not. only subjected to rebuffs he would not have tolerated for a second in his own Court, but from which, as the long-drawn out evidence and mass of documents accumulated, possible good coulil result. The judgment entirely bears out that sus-Picion, for. it simply amounts to an adoption of the main arguments adduced by Mr, Drummond, for the defendants, with some illogical abuse, and curtly refuses all redress to the plaintiffs, It is of course impossible that the case can be allowed to rest where it is, The patience of the British authorities must have been severely strained for some time past, and we do not believe that they will allow the claim of a British firm to be ignored, and then played with by a Chinese Court, as the one in question certainly seems to have been. Vigorous representations in the proper quarter will, we trust, soon put at their proper value the grotesque statements that have been made as to Chinese law and custom, which have simply served to obscure the main issue, and that is, whether petty Chinese officials are to be allowed to repudiate when they like contracts with British merchants, and commit acts approximating to piracy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.