We have already one grand compel tion in the new Imperial Customs Rules, aid upon all goods and effects trans-which fall duties and half duties are Ferred from one river port to another. The likin, about which so much fuss is made, is a bagatelle compared with the obstraction to free intercourse on the Great River introduced by the ever-tightening red tape of the Foreign Customs Service, and thus the more new ports opened" the greater the hindrance to trade. Why not confine the Maritime Customs to maritime trade instead of dotting the country with new inland custom-house such as remind one of unfortunate Germany in the chaotic days before the Zollverein? The old native likin whipped us with rods, but the new Foreign Agents of the Chinese Government whip us us with scorpions. Visitors.
Major Manifold and Captain Hunter, members of an exploring party, have just visited Chentu and are now on the return journey to this port. Mr. Duclos, Engi-heer to the "Szechuan Mining Ca." is also back, but there is no sign as yet of the concessions obtained for them by M. Haas, two years ago, being worked. It is said that the Chinese succeeded in attaching impossible conditions, thus postponing the evil day of "foreign" mining to the Greek Kalends.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.