After long waiting we have recently been able to purchase property for a hospital and a physician's house at this place. "We are asked 9 per cent of the value of the property for having the deed stamped. To us Americans this seems enormous, but it is what the natives all have to pay. We were told at the yamen that orders have just come down from the Fant'ai to double the fees. Whether this means simply to double the legitimate fee, of means abso the doubling of the extra' squeeze which is charged aa regularly as the legal fee, I do not know. It puts quite an extinguisher on the buying and selling of property.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.