The following report from Peking now in circulation amongst the local may darins. It is to the effect that when the news of the dispatch from Hongkong to Shanghai and Yangtze ports of a large British squadron of armoured ships and gunboats was transmitted by telegraph from this pert to the Grand Secretary Yung In in Peking, the latter at once went to Eho Park and showed the telegram to the Empress Dowager. The conference between the two is stated to have been very secret, but when the Grand Secretary left the Presence he was dis tinctly heard to say: Well, there is ne help for it but to send troops to oppose any hostile movements." This he said repeatedly, to no one, however, in parti cular.
1-t Octob An Extra Burden on the State.
It is stated by people in the Board of Revenue and the Imperial Household Department that the expense of keeping Bho Park Palace and grounds at the present period, during the occupation of the Empress Dowager and the Court, daily amounts to about Tls. 20,000. A little over half of this amount goes in the extra allowances for the daily board and wage of the Ministers, secretaries, clerks, and runners of the Six Boards and minor Ministries while doing duty at, Court wages for the drivers of, and fodder, etc., for the mules and ponies which drag the "Peking coaches" and carts carrying the above officials to Eho Park and back to Peking, daily; the wages and food of the men in charge of the steam Iaunches and Toyal barges in the "Lakes" and the miniature railway, with coal and fuel for them, it being necessary always to have steam up in case the Empress Dowager should want them at any time or hour of the day; the wages and food of the men in charge of the electric light machiners and coal for it, and the Palace telegraph office, etc., etc. In a word, if the Empress Dowager and her Court occupies Bho Park the whole year round it will cost the perial exchequer nearly seven and a-half Million tals more than if she remained in the usual manner in the "Forbidden 3rd November.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.