29th March.
We received on Monday afternoon the following telegram from our' correspondent at Hongkong "The compradore of the Hongkong and Shavghait Bank has absconded, Loss $600,000. Four native banks have stopped payment with a liability of a million and a half."
The wires between Hongkong and Shanghai were kept busy on Monday with accounts of the panic in the colony. Some reports placed the loss of the bank at $500,000 and of the Bank of China at $50,000, while there were no buyers of the stocks of either institution. News was received by wire also of a panic in India, where exchange had fallen $d. Even here in Shanghai there is a state of suspense and distrust almost approaching a panic, of which the reported sale of Sheridan shares at Tls. 45 is an instance. It is to be feared that we have not yet heard the last of the disasters that will make the spring of 1892 a memorable period in the history of foreign trade in China. We may add that one of the native banks which has stopped payment: in Hongkong has a branch in Shanghai, with very considerable local liabilities, BRITISH MARRIAGES IN CHINA, 29th Murch.
Marrtige Acts and the consequent Orders in Council have been very rife of late. It, is little more than a year since the Foreign Marriages Order in Council 1890 was promulgated, yet it has already been, in whole or in part, repealed. It successor is dated the 24th November last and should, for such of us as have the intention or the inclination to commit matrimony, be of lively interest. Persons of an analytical or statistical turn of mind might sum up the possible or probable forms which the rash deed might take out here into some four or five classes. First, there is the case where both the parties live in the same port, next where the would-bridegroom resides in one port and his bride in another; then again, where he is in China and she prepared to come out to be married; fourthly, where both live in the interior at places remote from Consuls; and lastly where the she—for the he is almost unthinkable—is a Chinese subject. Now the first case even under the old hard and fast. regulations never could have given much trouble; after the due notices, a lapse of four weeks, and payment of the licence fees, a marriage could take place. The only difference made here by recent legislation is that licences have been abolished, and the period of waiting is reduced to three weeks. 'I'he rule now (or perhaps we should say, for the: present, since rules are very rapidly altered nowadays) is that after a residence of one week one of the parties can give the necessary notice, and that when two amore weeks have passed the manage may be celebrated provided of course
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.