The "Universal Gazette" learns th BLE. Liu K'un-yi has recently received telegram from the Chinese Foreign Ottice, stating that it had Leen decided to follow the suggestion of the Inspector-General of Customs, Sir Robert Hatt, to impose a duty of five per cent ad valorem on Tea export-broad, and that this had also been fied to the Chinese Commereisl Com missioners, Sheng Kung-pao and Lit Haihuan, and the Commissioners of Castoms in the various Treaty ports.
A"Go" at Paoists and Buddhists.
Taoist and Buddhist monasteries and associations throughout the Empire have the name of being mostly comparatively wealthy, possessing in the majority of landed estates, which bri lo overplus to the abbots, chief priests and bonzes.
It is not surprising, therefore, to ind avaricious mandarins continually on the lookout for excuses to tlecoe thas wealthy abbots and priests for the good of the State." According to a Chinkiang dispatch a notification has been recently issued to the abbots and priests-in-chunga of the various Taoist and Buldhist monasteries and temples of Chinkiang prefecture, to be prepared to contribute three-tenths of their revenues every year towards paying off the War Indemnity, such contributions to cease upon the completion of the payment of said Indemnity. The impoverished state of the provincial exchequer is given as the reason for the demand, and the nests are told that as all subjects of the emperor are loyally helping his Majesty to pay off the country's debt to foreigners, the same feeling of loyalty to the Throne should prompt abbots and priests to loosen the strings of their overflowing purses in aid of the same patriotic object.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.