The Taiping rebellion caused four years of misery and ruin in this city from 1860 to 186i, When order once more reigned in Soochow, the city and surrounding towns were in great poverty. At this crisis the weavers agreed to make a contribution to aid in maintaining the soldiers and sailors needed to preserve peace. This agreement was made to last for ten years, and the amount of the contribution was five hundred cash a month for each loom. At the end of ten years the contribution was continued and, it seems, was increased and was looked upon as a regular tax. At the end of another decade it was re-imposed. The third decade passed and the yoke seemed firmly fixed upon the necks of the weavers. The attempt recently made to enlarge the receipts by putting upon the tax list all the looms without exception found in the city and neighbourhood caused the uproar described in my last letter. The foremen as a rule own the looms, but the weavers pay the tax. The foremen deduct about twenty per cent from the wages paid to their men, and this saving is the source whence the foremen obtain the money to use in paying the tax. But the foremen take care to make the deduction from the wages of the weavers more than cover the amount paid to the likin office. Anyone who will carefully consider the history and the facts of the case will see that the weavers have a real grievance, Their lot was hard enough even' though the most skilful earned thirty or forty cents a day. carpenters, masons, tailors, weavers, etc., The regular rate of wages in 'Soochow for has been for years two hundred and twenty cash a day, which is at the present rate of exchange, 890 cash for one dollar, about twenty-five cents. When the foremen called the Weavers' Guild together and formally announced their intention to fo spend business the weavers were enraged. They went in a body of about a thousand men, tore down the doors and windows of the central likin office, and smashed the sedan chair of the chief of police, who received an ugly wound in the head while trying to quell the disorder.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.