To the Editor of the "Nortu-Curmya Darty News."
_Sm,—If the article on the "Meeting de Ningpo" in the "Echo de Chine" of May 29th is inspired by the Catholic Mission, it is interesting and valuable as being the very first indication, after five months of renionstrance on our part, that the Mission really has an excuse to offer for its aparently arbitrary conduct. But for the Ningpo residents to admit the particular excuse now vouchsafed would be to lose, not this portion of the Race Course only, but the whole Race Course.
All that the Mission has to do (if, as we fear, it is aiming at complete annexation) is to buy from the present holders any one of the original "lots" through which the road was cut. Then if it appears that, through carelessness or otherwise, no note has been made on the Chinese deed to the effect that so much of this area has been surrendered for public use, the Mission may, on their present plea of a "clean title deed," claim all that portion of the road that traverses the lot.
There may be on file at the local Consulate or elsewhere official _statements and maps contemporaneous with the construction of the road, describing the road and defining the areas of the lots, not in vague mow but in English feet; the road may be proved conclusively to have been in existence ever since its consteuetion; and its course may be (unless the Mission hastens to obliterate it) apparent every one. All this is to be useless if a; Taotai can be found timid, or a Consul-General pliant enough to fail in with the} view now advocated by the writer in the "Echo de Chine." The Mission, however, goes further than its advocate, for, as it happens, in the case actually in dispute, the Chinese deed on which the Mission's contract was based, so far from being "clean," actually contains a minute stating that 8 mow 1 fun of the original aren has been cut off for a public road." This minute was written in June 1876 (when Messrs. Sassoon sold the land to the Chinese) and wasin existence last January.
can hardly be explained away, even by the ingenious ' Echo," though of course it may, like the second commandment, be abandoned as not suitable to Catholic Missions.
Tam, ete., Campo.
Ningpo, 30th May.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.