Probably in part owing to the fall of snow and the lifting of despair from the people, brigandage and highway robbery have almost ceased, and consequently poor people who formerly dared not travel the reads, are again free to move about and do alittle buying and selling. Beggars are, of conse, unusually numerous and hold, often enforcing their demands by a resort to violone " 2
Rood has gone up a little in prive since last reper wand salt ie very de-r and of quali y owing to the supply. from Tientsin bei g cut off. 'The peuple are complaining becus+ the war has stopped the impor! of foreign gods snab as conl-oil, matches, needles, thread, ete. which have n-en wreatly in price. Many' of the common espe are beginning ty remark that "after all the foreigners wer~ not xo bal," and to ask "what harm did they ever do us anyhow?" Thos" having sick friends are anxious to know when Dr, MeClure int nds to return to the interior, Chinese soldiers are still encamped in the neighbourhood of Cangt® and in the mi-sion promices there. We hear that the wealthy people of the city contributed 3,000 tian cash ($1,800.00 gold) towards the preparation of bomb-proofs in the mission yard with a view to taking refuge there when the allies arrive, They evidently have got rid of the fear they once had that the mission yard and cellars were full of mines and other engines of destruction, and do not appear to have much confidence in the efficiency of their city wall with its tin-clad gates to turn Western armies Rumour had it that the Emperor was to return to Peking by way of Changtd in the 2ad moon, and orders had been issued to repair the roads for the occasion and to rect special stopping-places for him along the route. Tt was also avid that Yii Hsien and Tung Fu-hsiang had been executed.
Boxers continue to drill in the towns and village about Changte and [the city itself, and even in the yamens there. But itis is now exrried on at ight and not in the day as formerly.
notal Chen had exuved to he removed, with water and broom, those inflammatory proclamations to which attention was culled in our Inst, showing that even in H nan some pressure ix being felt. But like the agitated water where two. tides meet the anticforsign spirit ix still in evidence. Colonel Clu who. as reported one Inst, lid issued proclamations in is own name for the purpes+ of protecting the Christians, and who also wrote a letter Chet s accused 10 the Tao tai by the district magistrate of having interfered with the enemy and consequence, desiaded a' step, though retained in his command at the mission compound, MISSION PROVERTY, 'i ras there is any of it to contin e—much a4 reported in our Inst. Li Ming denies that any of the thoring or woodwork has been removed from the houses xt Changt®, and he thinks a goud deal of the furniture, ete., from the houses there is stowed away in official store-house.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.