A Hsian native correspondent comment ting on a number of officials of the 4th, Sth, Gth and 7th ranks, such as prefects, sub-prefects, department and district magistrates, such as are usually known ay the local' officials" of a city, recently selected by the Central Government at Hsian to take the places of officials in the Yangtze provinces who had been dismissed or cashiered on account of the antimissionary disturbances last summer, slates that, with only a very few exceptions, nearly all are rank conservatives and antiforeigners at heart. The new officials, it is alleged, have been instructed by the arch reactionaries at Hsian to take up a certain line of conduct when the former get to their respective posts, and iv will depend entirely upon the prestige of the Foreign Powers in the near future as to how the officials in question will act towards missionaries and foreigners in general. There are also some of the "exceptions" who formerly inclined to be conservative in their views and opinions, have, since the flight of the Court to Hsian, been led to consider the error of their ways and voluntarily joined the ranks of the Progressive or Reformed arly. Amongst these, it would seem, isa certain Lien Wen-tstung, (GWCSCKH), a native of Hangchow, Chekiang proviner formerly a Secretary of the Teunidi Yamen, and now "ppointed to be prefect of the city of Kanchou, K ngsi proviner. Lien Wen-tsu i who avery able and man in the "Naw ing" was in. the Tyunsli the Boxer disturbances in Peking and the siege of the Leyatious ge by the Imperial troops under the Secretary Yung Lu vod Tung Fu-hsi whilst Princes Tuan and Chuang, Kan Yi, Ch'n Ktueicluug, Ha Naiyiny, et led the Boxers. At this juncture we Suan and Kang-yi were at the howl of government, Lunperial as well as Boxer, and of course controlled the Tsungli yamen as_well (this was how the martyred Psungli Yamen Ministers, Hsii_ Ch'in: clvéng and Yuan Chang met their deaths atthe time). Prince Toan, under advice of Kang Yiand cthers, then commanded the Ministers of the Tsungli Yauén to draw up a Declaration of War the mame of the Emperor, and Lien Weén-tsung on a-count of his scholarship knowledge of Foreign affairs, was ordered under compulsion and threats of being served in the same way as is two superior ofheers, the murdered Hsii and Yom, to dra 1 cious document, in the name of Kuany Hsii. There was no help for it and so tien did whet he was ordered in company with a favourite protege of Yung Lu, i, Yang Ch'ung-yi. whose guilty conscience caused him to take refuse in Shenghai, just before the fall of Peking. Finally Lien Wen-tsung having been appointed not azo to the prefecture of Kanchou, cly noted above, has announced his n of starting a "School of Western Learning and Sciences" in that city and will also inaugurate other improvements for the benefit and enlightenment of the: people he is t" govern the following three years. With such an enlightened otticial at Eanchou, missionaries la that vicinity ould ye able to live at peace with their neighbours there. tue csmest 1 cH, Further news received by the local mandarins from the North states that the Chinese local authorities in Southern and South-western Chibli are utterly belpless in dealing with the allied villages now up in acms on the pretence of resisting the fines to be levied on them for the riots and troubles of last year.
The "Universal Gazette" learns that two more Censors have recently denounced the Grand Secretary Yung Lu to the Empress Dowager in unstinted and most hitter terms; but, as was tu be' expected, his ullies, the eunuch Li Lien-ying, Lu Ch'uan-lin, ete., managed yo shelve the memorial a few minutes after its arrival Grand Council. Yung Lu says he disgusted and will retire into private as soon as the Court returns to Peking!"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.