Finalty has now been reached in the life history of the French dredgers as such. After a delay of three years and negotiations as prolonged as those for the cession of a province, the Chinese have at last consented to take delivery of these costly and useless vessels. Their destination suggests a satire on the ' Vanity of Celestial Progress for instead of making sinvoth the pathways of the sea, these hines are to be disembowelled, their viscera to be placed in the stock yard of the China Merchants' Company, and their hulls towed down to Swatow to act as pontoons in that savoury and sxecharine outport. ' Imperial Cresar dead and turned clay night stop a hole to keep the cold away. So these machines designed to clear the deep, as sheer old hulks will cane and beancake keep." Messrs. Stewart and Ferrier have been up here and have taken or are about to take over the vessels for their august. masters; a corporation which seems to be the recipient of all the white elephants landed in China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.