Six months ago the missionary community was being over-run with anxious seekers for western learning and all the rest; now not a whisper of such a thing is heard anywhere. The shell has closed, and the occupant is as mum as any oyster ever was on the subject of Reform. Speaking of education, as every one knows, the Literary Chancellor of the Liangkiang Provinces has his yamen here. At the time of the coup at" Peking he happened to be at home. When the little wavelet reached here, H.E. was one of the first to be conscious of an unusual disturbance; be took to his room immediately and was sick many days, It soon became known among the yo small number of inhabitants of the aforesaid miniature mountain ranges, that the sickness was feigned. Word went around that the Great Man waa seared! For had he not been trimming, his sails to catch the reform wind shoul it get strong enough to come as far as his obscure yamen "But he had not committed himself to writing! So that, while he was in a position to take either, he had not, at least, steered the wrong course,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.