Last autumn the Viceroy at Foochow reported that owing to heavy rain storms the river embankments had been washed away in Lungch'i and Nanching Hsiens. The water subsided so rapidly that less harm was done than might have been expected, and the local authorities were able to give such poor relief as was required. But now comes the more important question of repairing the embankments concerned. In Lungch'i they have been destroyed for a length of 7,893 feet, and in Nan-ching for 12,776 feet. If they be not rebuilt during the low water season in the winter months, when the spring rainfall and the freshets come down from the mountains, the whole country will be turned into a lake. After the losses which the farmers sustained from the destruction of their crops in the autumn, it is quite beyond their power to do the work from their own resources. It is therefore settled that the authorities should undertake the task. Careful estimates show that the cost will be Tls. 1.7.2.8 per foot, or Tls. 35,700 in all. The Viceroy proposes to raise subscriptions in Changchow and the neighbouring country, in order to provide the necessary funds, This will not be easy, as the people have given so much of late to Shantung and Chihli. But in order to encourage liberality, he begs that, as in the case of subscriptions for those provinces, rewards may be given to the contributors in the form of decorations, honorary titles, ancestral honours, and so on, and that, in calculating for this purpose, only four-tenths may be required of the nominal sum.—Approved.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.