TRANSFORMATION, The military occupation of this port has produced such a transformation as the "eldest inhabitant' never dreamed of witnessing. Until early in October the number of Chinese to be seen about the city and the settlement was limited, but since then there has been a constant inpour from every direction, until at the present time during the early morning and the late afternoon the stream of people along the Taku road is fully equal to that on the Strand or Broad This exceeding mixed multitude burny along with the celerity of the Westerner, and not with the leisurely gait of the Far East. Their talk is as yore about: money, but it is now all of "mao" (dimes), and very little is said of brass cash, although that useful and necessary nttisance still abides with us. Prices have risen on an average from one hundred to two hundred-and-fifty per cent for some articles, and for labour. The latter was for atime hard to get, but there is now an enormous supply, and while the demand is great it can always be more than met. At first fifty cents, forty, thirty-five cents represented the pay for a day (and an uncommonly short day) but now the tendency is to smaller sums, yet much depends on the accident of who happens to be the employer.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.