29th Muy.
The Question of Likin Abolition, According to the "Sinwénpao," as well as that of the increase of duties in com sation therefore is to be discussed at Peking between the Chinese Foreign Office and Sir Emnest Satow, H.B.AL Minister, and the change of base was communicated lately to the British and Chinese Commissioners.
The Rebellion in South-west Chihli.
It is reported from Chénting that the bodies of the French R.C. priest, "Lo," two converts and carters who were murder-edin April last, at the commencement of the second outbreak of the Kuangtsunghsien and Chiiluhsien rebels, have been recovered in Weihsien, near Chiilubsien, and it has been discovered that the leader of the rebels who murdered those men was Ching.o-fo, the brother of Ching Ting-pin, the chief leader of the rebel armies who, according to late reports, was recently killed in a fight with Viceroy Yuan's troops.—A letter received here lately from Weeihsien states that the district magistrate of that city has received reliable information that no less than eleven districts and departments (hsien and chou) of southwestern Chihli are more or less hostile to the Government, and that he is of opinion that, unless very drastic measures, disereet-
30th May.
Viceroy Yuan and the Progressives.
Whatever may have been the double part played by Viceroy Yuan Shih-kai in 1898—the year of the Emperor's abortive attempt at reforming his Empire—when Yuan himself was in command of an army of foreign-modelled troops at Hsiaochan, some fifty odd miles from Tientsin, and was specially promoted by the Emperot to the rank of a brevet Vice-President of one of the Six Boards at the instance of the proscribed Reformer K'ang Vu-wei, one thing has been apparent since the Empress Dowager's return from Hsian to Peking last December. Yuan Shih-kai has been uniformly acting as the backer and sponsor of officials holding progressive and enlightened ideas, whom Yuan has been frequently heard to declare were truer patriots and more loyal to their Imperial Master thin the most devoted Manchu and his brother reaction ary the Chinese conservative bigot. To this end several of the more prominent members of the Progressive Party, in office and out of office, have been repeateilly "secretly recommended "—it is like the man—to the Throne in strong terms of admiration by Viceroy Yuan, with various success. The latest of Vicoro Yuan's recommendations are: Their Excel-lendes Wu Ting-fong, at present Chinese Minister accredited to the United States, Spain and Peru, whose term expires this year, and Huang Chun-hsien (also known in the South as "Wong Kung-doo," Consul-General at Singapore in 1897), who just prior to the coup d'état of September, had been promoted from the Salt Tao-of Hunan province to be Chinese ister Plenipotentiary to the Court of The storm which arose after the coup d'état blasted the hopes of the Reform Party, for the time, and ELE. Huang Chun-hsien, of course, found himself s marked man like the rest. Ho hastened to resign the Ministership upon his arrival from Hunan at Shanghai, while en route to Peking, but suddenly found himself made a prisoner at the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, on the Bubbling Well Road, which place had been prepared expressly for H.E. in his capacity of Minister-designate by the then Taotai of Shanghai, the well-known rice speculator, Tsai Chun, who from the character of the effusive host and sworn brother " of the newly-made Minister immediately changed his rie to that of gaoler without, itis reported, waiting for orders from Peking, as soon as it became rumoured about that the Empress Dowager and her reactionaries were anxious to "wipe out" all and sundry who were desirous of national progress, in the same manner as the six young martyrs to Reform met their fate on the execution in Peking. Fortunately for H.E. Huang Chun-hsien, through various causes, too
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.