TsO AD ale An interesting case, illustrating the uses to which an English education is sometimes put by. the wily Chinese, was before the fixed Court on Monday morning. A few days ago a prominent minister of the Gospel here received the following letter which is printed verbatim below "Shanghai, 22nd October, 1897.
"Rev. Smm,—I beg most respectively to submit to you the following sad mishap from Fossbow to Chefoo, and for which which happened to me during my voyage venture to ask your kind assistance "My name is Chang Wen-yuen. Tama Chefoo man. Iam twenty-four years old this year. I gained my knowledge in the Anglo-Chinase college in Foochow, and was baptized in the presence of Mr. G. A. Smyth in 1889 together with my father who is a dealer in graies and. is now in Singapo 1 went to Formosa in 1893 when the Chino-Japanese war broke out, I was, at that time, in charge of one of the Railway ions at Taipeh, I returned Foochow in when the island ceded to the Ja-
ment of ons of the native tes firms there. It nese, since then I wes in the employ. happened, unfortunately, on the 18th of last month a junk belonging to one of my relatives arrived in port, and brought me a letter from my home, station; that my elder brother would get mai ry.nt the end of the month, and my mother orders me to return home by ite return voyage. So I set home by it on the 23rd of the same month. until the 27th when a strong northerly Light variable winds were experienced
wind set in and soon developed into a gale. The se: s became extremendously rough and high and the vessel laboured heavily. On the morning of the 29th the vessel became unmanageable, on account of the great damage done by the heavy waves. On the 30th when the wind was still in its height, the vessel came upon a rock and it went down immediately only 'a small portion of its overturned stern left out of the water, and we four saved our lives by climbing up to it, where we remained-until the 2nd inst. when a steamer was sighted coming towards us, we were too weary out to give any signs of distress, fut te wave our foible hand, fortunately the captain of the ship had caught sight of us before we tried hard to draw her attention she came alongside of us, and lowered a boat, and in a few minutes after we found ourselves once again safe. There we kneeled down to thank our God and the captain who bad saved us. After some questions were put to nly fellow sufferers by the Captain, we were, then, conveyed to Shanghai, when I got ashore I was left homeless, for I have neither a relative nor a friend here, and for these days I depend wholly upon' the few dollars which had subscribed to me by the kind passengers of the steamer for my daily fares.
"Yesterday when I was in the Inst stage of despair, I met two of our native fellow-christians' who intimated me that your goodness is very kind, and generous and give aid to any christian who is really need of help, they encourage me to write this to you with the hope that you will have the kindness of favouring me with any engagement that can save me from starving, and I will certainly lose no pains to exert myself in giving you every satisfaction that I pov Thanking you greatly for this trouble in ess in my power.
advance and with best respect.
Awaiting your orders, Iam, Fraternally yours, (in Eh.) HE 3 FG
P.S.—Ieannot send this application in, by myself for I do not the way to your office. Please favour me with your kind reply through the following mentioned shop and much oblige." a Here followed the address in Chinese of ance shop at Sinza. The reverend gentleman, to whom the letter was addr-sed, sent his boy out to Sinza and brought in the writer, who told a most plausible story, and asked for assistance to obtain employ: Lad: ment. Ho was given $2 to relieve his immediate necessities and sent on to another gentleman, who gave him $7, being half the fare to Chefoo, and sent him back, with a" recommendation that he should be given the balance and sent on to his native place. The money was given to him snd he promised to leave by the first steamer. A day or two after, however, another well-known divine received an almost identical letter, but as he had heard of the previous case, enquiries were made proving his story to be utterly without foundation, and the man was arrested.
'He was given 10 days' imprisonment and ordered to be deported.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.