An account in a recent number of your paper of the brave stand made by a certain district magistrate in Szechuan against the old custom which requires him, and through-him the people of his district, to provide éntertainment for the Literary Chancellor, recalls how last year the same official in this province is said to have come to grief shortly after arriving at this place. H. B. called the prefect's attention to the fare he was receiving from the district magistrate On the prefect remonstrating with! the latter he Toplied that he was @ poor man and that his income was not sufficient to allow the preparation of more costly viands. The Chuncellor waxed wroth, and by pulling the proper strings, our district Ingistrate was made to vanish from the acone, Unfortunately for the crest man though, the vanquished bad a iwi on a certain' Censor, and by properly pulling his Jittle string, the Chancellor for reasons more satisfactory to Peking than to himself, also retired behind the curtains, and a new Examiner now rules in the province of Confucius, His predecessor probably now realises that, for prudential reasons, a dish of herbs is sometimes preferable to a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.