However, for the past six months, several officers of the I. M. Customs have been busy at Chengliuki pinning and laying out 8 foreign Settlement; and, ae duly advertised in the newspapers, the lots were put up for public auction at the Land Office, Yochou, {alias Chengliuki) in the presence of the Tuotai_and- Mr. Morse, Commissioner of Customs, on Monday 'Inst. The crowd of purchasers was not large. At the appointed hour on Monday last, there put in an appearance two Japanese and one Russian gentlemen, an English Missionary—who, however, did not' bid—and several natives connected with the steamer companies, The land to be disposed of was extensive, and might east! have been twice as large without incommoding anybody. But all the same the lots were microscopic. The Chines in their wisdom had cut the ground up into several hundred pieces, most of them the size of one quarter of x mow or say 40 feet by 45 fect, From ancient times the celestial plan has been to pig together, the closer the better, why a foreigner should require so much' room the Chinese have never been able to understand, and they were to have no such nonsense at Ohengliuki! If the lots were small THE PRICES WERE BIG, Indeed, it transpired when the auction came on, that_no money could buy them out and out. They were only to be leased for a period of 80 years at an annual ground rent of $100 per mow for the best, $30 per mow for the second best, and $50 per mow for the poorer positions." The auction was simply to settle how much in addition to these sums the public would be willingtopay for a choice of sites. There was by no means a cut-throat competition, Each purchaser got what ho wanted at about the upset price, and allowed his neighbour to do the same. Still it was dear land, One gentle man wanted a piece of about four mow, and in order (o get it had to buy no less than seventeen separate lots, although the whol piece hardly amounted to the area of an ordinary Concession lot in the older Settlements. For this ground he pays the sum of $12,000 in thirty annual instalments, at the end of which time he is to have the privilege of doing it all over again for another thirty years if he likes, or clear out, Further, if he fails in his payments any single year, the land immediately reverts to the Chinese Government with all that is thereon. It need hardly be said the lots were not all sold.
plenty loft, and anyone may have ground rent for the first year. In addition veorfreigner—by paying double to the $100 a mow of rent, there is the further sum of $3 a year to be paid for taxes to the Commissioner of Customs who, along with the Taotai, is to run the Settlement. The Chinese make the roads and undertake policing and lighting. Residents are not to be bothered with Municipal Councils or public ase of any kind. A benevolent and paternal Customs will see that overything necessary to be done is done for the above mentioned eum of $3, and no one can call it dear. Still, it seems a pity they it on as it spoils a fine specimen of S10. the beauty of the single tax theory. That the Chinese authorities mean to spare no expense in PUTTING THE PLACE IN ORDER, they have already shown by building a substantial wall and gateway—of the usual city-wall pattern—between the foreign Settlement that is to be, and the native town. "Its defensive side, of course, is towards the town for fear the rude bar-parians might some day get mad and come and say nasty. things about the ancestors of, the poor natives, This new wall and the 300 yards of native town were beautifully illurainated for three nights at the expense of the Taotai, who further gave a maguificent banquet to all the foreigners in the place in honour of the occasion and treated them in the kindest fashion. What
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.