The gist of a petition ree-ntly presented to the Shanghai Ta tai, Yuan, by the representatives of all the native business guilds and Associations of this port, which we we below speaks for itself.—The petitioners ask that the present procedure obtaining in regard t" Eh nese defendants in the Settlements may be remedied. They learn that the Municipal Council hus come to an arrangement with the Consular Body to the effect that when Chinese in the French Settlement sue their fellow-countrymen in the Cosmopolitan Settleme..ts, upon a warrant b ing issued by the French Consul and sent over north of the Yangkingping to be signed by the Senior Consul the defendants in the Cosmopolitan Settlements may be at once arrested and banded over to the French police. No matter whether the complainants have any substantial grounds for complaint or have made malicious accusations or not, no discrimination is made as to the social standing wf the defendants; they are all bunded into a common prison company with the thieves and blackguards by the French police and made to kee confined therein, The torture and loss of "face" "suffered by the respectable merchant who finds himself summarily arrested and made ty undergo such deyradation may easily be image Furthermore, the French Mixed Court has a rule which forbids any bail being allowed before a case has been first tried before that tribunal; while lawyers are, also forbidden to pical before it, nor the English language allowed to be used there. In a word, in international matters the fact that lawyers are not allowed to appear on behalf of nati hents puts the la ter under manifestly great disadvantages, as only the words of the foreign complainant are heard while the native defendants will have no means of putting forward their ease in defence. The petitioners find that in an agreement made by the Tsungl Yamen, in 1869, with the Ministers of the Foreign Powers, *t was agreed that in indicia' matter. affecting natives in the foreign Settlement if an adj ing Settlement wishes to have a man arrested, he should be first tried before
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.