The origin of the recent serious riot at Shasi is given by independent native testi-many as follows: There is a great scarcity of the Chinese staple food, rice, this year, especially in the Yangtze valley, and, indeed, throughout the greater portion of the Empire where the prospects of good harvests are exceedingly dubious. In consequence of this the great mass of the people the riverine cities are exceedingly bitter against any proposition to export rice to foreign countries, although it may allowed that the jealousy is not so strong when the exported geain is certified for shipment to other provinces. Hence when it became suspected and eventually leaked out that certain cargoes of cereals lying in boats at Shasi_ were waiting for a steamer to be exported toa foreign country, there was a great uproar amongst the' people headed bya number of Hunan boatmen and longshore men. The consequence was that matters went from bad to worse and the foreign buildings situated along and in the vicinity of the Shasi river front were wantonly destroyed. Tt was this same feeling which prompted the people of Kiu-king to take away a quantity of rice also destined for export by mob violence, an outline of which appeared in these columns last week. Those rice riots, properly speaking, are not the work of desperadoes and secret society men but the spontaneous outbursts of a hungry people.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.