The British steamer Cheongkong has been seized and used by pirates wherewith to capture a junk on the West River. She left Kumebuk at 4 p.m. on the 12th instant and soon after leaving that port the crew commenced to search the passengers as usual to make sure that none of them carried arms, This was the signal for a number of them producing revolvers with which they overawed the crew after wounding the master. 'Lhe pirates then ransacked the baggage of the passengers proper (of whom there were 17), collected po of a portable nature of any value, and ordered the master to steam to Chataosap, where they landed the booty. Having' accomplished this without interruption they then attacked a junk that was being towed by a steam-launch, opening fre upon her. The crew of the steam-launch returned the fire, but the hostilities grew too hot for the latter, and casting the junk adrift they steamed away. The pirates then boarded the junk, from which they secured seveuteen cases of opium and a box of gold coins valued xt $2,000. They put back to Cha-tosan and landed there with the fresh plunder, leaving the Cheongkong to resume her voyage to Hongkong, which she reached on the 13th -inst. The-audacity of: the pirates, it will be eeen, is increasing, but they have not yet bad the temerity to tackle one of the companies' steamers, where proper precautions are taken to prevent pirates taking passage.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.