Hsin dispatch to the " Universal Gaze!te" states that efforts are being made by friends at Hsian to get the sentence of perpetual imprisonment commuted in regard to the two Hanlin members of the Reform Party, namely, Ch'én Ting of Chtangsha, Honan, and Shen Peng of Chiangshu' of this province of Kiangsu—near Soochow, also the native city of the ex-Imperial Twor and Grand Secretary Tung-ho. It will be remembered tat the above two Hanlins, in company with two others of the same rank, one of whom is a native of Yunnan province, were denounced by the notorious Kang Yi and his party of reactionaries not very ter the cou" d'étut of September, for the part these fur Hantins took the Reform movements that year. Kang Yrs wishes had been: fulfilled the unlucky Hanins would have been deco sit sted during the autumn Assizes of Unw Board of Panis laments in 1899. Indeed, this sentence was actually given out after the enquiry ordered to be held at the time of their denunciation; but fortunately more moder ste counsels prevailed, and the sentence of decapitation was commuted to perpetual imprisonment in the native city nf each of the victims. The alleged death of this most bizeted of all reactionaries, Kang Yi, in Wéubsi district, on the Shansi-Shensi borders, in Octob: lust, has apparently emboldened the friends of the Reformers to plead for commutation of their sentences and it is to be hoped that they will succeed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.