Intrigues against Enlightened Officials.
News received from Hsian states that since August there has been a regular clique of reactionaries, holding subordinate ranks (th 6th and 7th grades), the mem-bors of which have made it. their sole bus ness to search for proofs vilifying the character and abilities of all Viceroys, Governors, Treasurers and Judges in the provinees who show, or have shown any intelligence or ability in dealing with reform measures, or who have already begun to obey the recent Imperial edicts abolis! ing Weuchang, trials of strength and agility, ete., and inaugurating new schools and colleges of Western Learning.
The M. A. and Doctor Competitions Which, as already stated in these columns, have been forbidden for five years in king on account of the anti-foreign out: rages in the Capital, will doubtlessly be held in one of the Central provinces this year. On the 22nd of September, the Ministers of the Board of Rites in Peking Who have charge of all such matters, sent to Hsian a joint memorial urging the necessity of holding these examinations without further delay, "in order to maintain the prestige of the Sovereign, and recommended as the place for said competitions either Nanking (Kiangsu), Chinan (Shantung) or K'aiféng (Honan). The choice of course rests with the Empress Dowager, and an Imperial Rescript is now being anxiously watched for by the country.
Distress in T'aich'ang.
pouring sub-prefecture of T'aich'ang, be-News has been received. from the neigh-tween fifty and sixty miles west of Shanghai to the effect that there is much distress amongst the cotton planters in that region, owing to the disastrous rains of the season just passed. It sipeers that_ T'aich'ang {also sometimes spelt, locally, T'aichong) is a great cotton producing place supplying both Shanghai as well as the country towards Chinkiang; seven-tenths of the subprefecture being covered with cotton fields and the balance being confined to the' cultivation of rice, Owing- however, as already noted above, to the of the summer the cotton crop has been a ruined, only one-seventh of the whole having been gathered. In view of this the Nanking authorities are contemplating the commutation of the land tax there this year.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.