is still further occluding interest in political affairs. Curious reports reach us through native, and therefore not very well-defined channels, of the gradual modification of the Empress Dowager's reactionary attitude, and of steady, if slow, recognition that reform is as inevitable as it is imperatively necessary. General Yuan, one of the ablest but most inscrutable of the Chibli great officials, is much in communication with Peking in these days; and has had more than one audience with the modern Zenobia. We hear echoes of Imperial and soldierly Jeremiads, said to be commingled th tears, at the present Celestial outlook; but the more wary will not be misled by such rumours. Reform, either cataclysmal or gradual, in a country like China, where custom is fixed to petrification and is unfortunately stronger than law and religion combined, is no easy matter; indeed it is probably beyond the initiative of the Empress Dowager herself. The way folk talk one would think the mere ipso dizit of a sexagenarian lady was sufficient to alter the bias of centuries. The Empress Dowager herself is tied and confined by bonds that not even her force of character can break through: like all other arbitrary monarchs (0 called) she can be and is checked and thwarted at every move in the game by influences which are all the more potent because they are obscure.
OUR HAIKUAN-TAO, LI MIEN-SHING, is transferred to the still more lucrative post of Grain (Tribute, Rice) Commissioner of Kuangsi. Taotai Li has during his term of office here proved himself an open-minded, progressive official; his relations with for: eigners though both numerous and coi plex, have all been marked with urbanity and' a strong desire to. meet reasonable wishes. It was I due to his common sense and good will that the extension of the British Concession was curried through so quietly and without friction, His Honour will take to his new sphere the good wishes of all the foreigners who have come in contact with him during the last two years and a-half, He is succeeded here by agentloman who has held the same office before, and who has twice (if not, three times) been Taotai of the Exst Arsenal here, Liu has the reputation of being t reasonable man whose relations with foreigners steadily improved as he more about them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.