You doubtless have observed that the Viceroy has memorialised the Throne for some punishment to himself re the floods in Chilli. This quiet appropriation of the responsibility for the visitation of God would be amusing were it not acconspanied by the more serious items that two or three officials have been degraded for the same uncontrollable evil. It would he interesting to discover how His Excellency now regards Wu Ting-pain, the Taotai of Taming, who persuaded him to dig a big trench last spring to obviate these terrible calamities. This would-be-successor of Sung Li and the great hydraulic engineers has once more conclusively proved the utter inadequacy of any peddling measures to meet these recurring disasters. The material loss by one flood to the Government is far greater than the aggregate cost of preventive measures spread over ten or twenty years would be; the loss to the people is incalculable, but we may be quite sure nothing will be done.
I do not think that any collective effort be made by the foreign community to mitigate the distress this year. Many of us think that charity privately dispensed will do more good, and it will certainly do Jess harm, than a repetition of our former policy of subsidizing a string of villages with monthly doles of cash. Much of our money in 1890-1 went to nourish a lot of superpious malcontents who were starving in pendulous paunches. a The water this year was fully one foot with less violence and the loss of life has been farles and, in our immediate locality, insignificant, It is an ill wind, ete.; we are now having boat sailing, and ice buat ing is assured for the winter. The water is now falling an inch or tio every day, as the river surface is below that of the plain water.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.