This limited liability company pays an interim dividend of five per cent. for the half year, and the accounts continue to afford pleasing evidence of sound and careful management. The Directors have just decided upon the purchase of the excellent site now occupied by the New Oriental Bank premises. What the exact price is I cannot say, but it is between $37,000 and $40,000. There can, I think, be no question tas to the wisdom of this move, as possession of this site (Lot No. 11) will give the company frontage on the Bund and two streets, one of them the widest in the Concession. There were fears that others might enter the market with a view to the erection of a hotel on the Lot; indeed Tam told that a firm here had actually been in treaty for it on behalf of a syndicate said to be interested in one of the hotels ut Hongkong. The price named is full value, The sale of the Hiogo Hotel takes place to-morrow afternoon.
A MATSURI ON THE WATER, I don't know whether any Shanghailanders have ever witnessed the grand water carnival which takes place at Osaka every 25th and 26th of July, but if not, and an opportunity should at any time offer, they may be safely recommended to make a point of seeing it. A more weird and interesting spectacle it would be difficult to discover in any land pretending to be civilised to-day. I went up to Osaka this year to see it and i mie as being far more worthy of a vi the opening of the Sumida river which is one of the annual sights of the people in +Yokohama and Tokio. The whole river from the vicinity of Jiutai's Hotel to perhaps a mile below the Fu Buildings was practically one blaze of light from inn un able lanterns, fire-cages, and huge bonfires on barges moored every hundred yards or so along both sides of the river. Hundreds and thousands of people, men, women, boys, and girls, took part in the wild show, and the sight of scores of men barely clad dancing and gesticulating around and about the leaping Hames (kept within manageable bounds by heavy logs placed one on top of the other in the form of a square, open every foot or so on the four sides) was most striking. As each boat forming the procession passed down the river these men would clap and shout and then asa
boats—of all sizes and lengths and deseripclimax jump into the river, Many of the tions—were extremely picturesque. What the real object is I have not yet been able to discover, but so far as I can learn the shrines and emblems belonging to a temple known as Tenjiusan are yearly removed to a temporary resting place two miles or so down the river and thence taken back the following day. Unfortunately there is little light to be obtained on the subject from the only Japanese work I have' come across with anything like full descriptions of the sights and scenes in Settsu province. The order maintained was remarkable—order rooted in disorder. Needless to say no quarrelling marred the unique, semi-barbaric display.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.