A Peking dispatch states that it reported that Li Hung-charly in response ta the prayers and appends of Yi Lien-san, Governor of Hunan, and Liu Shu-trans, ex-Governor of Chdkiang, and inspired by the usual promises one Chinese official gives t mother in return for services irentered, has been using his best en-Aeavours' to get the Foreign Ministers at Peking to lighten the sentences demanded on the Governors. The li of the punishment of these two officials, namely, loss_of rank and banishment beyond' the Great Wall, for being the actual authors and instigators last summer of the rioting and murder of missionaries and converts at Héngehou, Hunan province, and Chuchou, Chekiang province, has already caused much dissatisfaction to a great part of the entry and literati of the country owing to the disproportionate measures of punishment demanded where really guilty officials are lightly dealt wi whereas those who are known to be innocent of premeditated evil have considerably severer sentences passed on them. In the matter of Chekiang, for instance, a number of the more enlightened gentry, merchants, and literati of that province openly declare that the two really guilty officials ar ex-Governor Liu Sh, the author of the riots at Chuchou, Pao Taotai of Chuchou, who executed the former's instructions in regard to the forged Accrees of the 20ch and 2st June issued by Prince Tuan. Yet the punishments de-mauded for these tws anti-foreign bigots are about the sume, while the Provincial Judge Yung Ch'nan, whom popular sentiment declares to have had nothing to do with the outrages in question, is asked to be_cashiered and perpetually banished. So wih many other officials mentioned in the lists of guilty olticials whose punishment is demanded by the Foreign Ministers, 'This dissatisfaction 18 not the vapouring of a few, bat an actual fact amongst enlightened' Chinese, ratingly declare that, trouble masses throughout China will u arise this year if no discrimina: ion is exer-cived. Ivis even declared that Pao Taorai under the wing of Li Hung-chang in cousidera'ion of the former being tre sun of the Into General Pao Ts'ao of Taipi rebellion fame and " close friend, when alive, of Li, who has promised to save Pao's head' from decapitation—n punish ment. which all who know Pao's conduct at Chuchow consider as thorvuglly deserved and which in fact Pao himself thought first would be his doom when the day of reckoning arrived.
A WISE DECISION, A relative of the notorious Hai Liang (Manchu), who was pointed Governor of Hupeh, writes as follows toa member of his family: now residing in Shanghai:—The hostile comments of the native and foreign Press of S.anghii and elsewhere on the appointment of our relative to the Gorernorship of Hupeh have been reported to H.E., und they seem have considerably impressed him. The close proximity also to the Yangize of Wuchang, where a foreign fleet can easily reach the city, should the pressure of rhe demand of the Foreign Powers for H.E.'s punishment become too imminent, is also a point which cannot be ignored, hence ELE. is unwilling to take over his seals xt present. and has informed the Throne to that eff-et. Do not, therefore, come to Wuchang just yet, ete., ete.
26th April:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.