This excellent bit of fooling has a serious side, under the mask of satire it shows that the shippers deem the new departure a reduction to the absurd. In truth, while the proposed new methods of shipping export cargo are in themselves strongly objected to, there can be no doubt that the way in which they have been promulgated has not only given the deepest offence, but inflicted real hardship. The steamer companies sent out their firman as if they were the Great Bashaw himself, and as if all the shippers had to do was to accept it as if they were the slaves of His Sublimity. The merchants object to this treatment, many of them have change of this description, involving as it running contracts on bund and a sudden does both annoyance and loss, is not to be endured without a vigorous kick against the pricks. This kick took the form of an emergency
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.