Two points have been borne in upon me on reading the accounts which have been published of the terrible visitation to which the regions alonx the middle reaches of the Yangtzekiang were last year subjected, and by whic tion were spread and popytlous area, leave been moderately wealthy, poor and glad have escaped with their lives, and those who had been mer despairing. The first, point though: the distress imme ing the subsidence of the floods tensified and have to be discharg; have to be faced wi increased to famine rates, be crop hax been rotting under wat out whole provinces. Th that it would be unwise to di money that may be raised for the relief of ithe distress (and surely purses wil be opened in this crying em-small doles of chan a course to deepen the pre That what Tamay call ix most beneficially expended on relief works, is a maxim which the ph thropie have invariably found to work well in practice; and this is the cours which I suggest should be adopted on the ried, a comparatively moderate sim of money would, for instance, be of much service in making provision for the minimise. in of the effects of future Yangtze floods 1 the work thus furnished the inhale ts of the affected area would enable them to cart: something towards ing the present emerge ner. The distress 15 booming very terrible, and a few of the officials, 2 in the increasing vehemence of the peoples' appeals for relief the presage of a storm if that relief be net forthcoming, have wisely, but somewhat late in the day, prohibited the export of rice from Shanghai and the Yangtze ports, owing to the enormous prices to which the transport would increase the icans of sustenance upon which people principally depend.
In some of the d tricts affected by the floods, the cost. of rice has gone up 600 per cent, and what this means to the poor you can very easily cone As to the nature of the relief works that could be most beneficially undertaken, it hay to be borne in mind that reports are constantly being received from Soochow and other places, concerning the choked and filthy condition of the crocks, all of which go to confirm what. was written last summer to the effect that it was in th improvement of these waterways that het work would best be provided. It is reported that the water ix now so low in these streams that small yrain-boats cannot ply along them, and yet the recommendations of last stunmér, which were made in anticipation of this state of of fairs, are still neglected. Whatever money is collected should now he expended in deepening the beds of the creeks and raising the banks by means of the soil taken up from the beds of the streams,—a very rich and productive soil. By this aiciins a sufficient depth of water for the boat traffic in winter could he se= cured. A third benefit that would be obtained, would be the improvement. of the public health which would inevitably sult from the conversion of the creeks, from the stagnant cesspools, which they now are, into clear and limpid running streams. Were the good work commenced on n few of the main creeks, the Chinese would of necessity be compelled to carry.
out on the smaller creeks also, for, if ey did not. the deepened channels would all the water out of the shallow ones, In this way a much-needed reform would become general.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.