A Canton dispatch states that a grand strike of shopkeepers, ete., occurred on the 30th and Slst of Last month, in the Western sul.urlisof Canton, due tothe extort tions of local authorities in the enforcement of house taxes in that, vicinity—ostensibly "for the support of the army now fighting the Triads." In consequence of the strike a number of the notables and gentry living in the western suburbs were arrested and placed in confinement by the mandarins. On the Ist inst. Mr. Poi, district magistrate of Naalai (Namhei, one of the two district magistracies of Canton city), went in person to the Western suburbs to exhort the people to reopen their shops and resume business and to pay the taxes demanded of them. To his great astonishment the population rose up and made him hostage for the relenso of their gentry and notables in the hands of the mandarins, and though courteously trester he could not get away until he had written out an order to the prison warden and had the notables relessod. The tension between populace and officials ix now quits critical and carlot be lessened until a guarantee is given by the mandarins to give up the tax.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.