A telegraphic dispatch from the North reports that General Ma Yii-kun's head. quarters are ata place about twenty-four li south-west of Shanhsikuan, where reinforcements. sre arriving in' quite large numbers, Ir is estimated that wi hour ing the troops Vic Shih-Kai will be able to himself put in the fiotd in the event of the commencement of hostilities, General Ma Yi-k'an, as Provincial Qominander-in-Chief of Chibli, has under him nearly 80,000 of sll arms." All are supplied with new-pattern weapons and he has a's0 several battens of qu firing field guns well provide with powder, From Ivtest information it is reported that General Ma has with hi and within support of his present force a total of about 14,000 men only, but the remainder, of larger part of hin pers nied how sesttered ab-ut the peo. have been ordered to he ready to leave their respective garrison cities at one day's notice fr Shanhaikuan, In conetusi we may say that the men at the present moment with General Ma Yiiekun have all sven active service, at least 9,000 of them having been participators of the hard fighting about Tientsin in June and Suly 100, under the Int" General Amongs* this number ix a body of very fair rtillorists who, bereft of leaders with others of the late General's force, had to flee from the allied troops upon the death of Goners! Nich (killed by a shell at the Western Arenal—Haikuang Szo—on the Liv of Tuly) and nearly all their officers.
Grub Pest in Sungkiang Prefecture, A dispatch from Sungkiang states that three-tenths of "he rice crops in the district of Louhsien belonging to Sungkians piefecture—to which Shanghai district 0 bolonge—have been destroyed within tho last few days by a kind of grub and that the po: ling to such an alarm ing extent that there ate fears for the immediate destruction of the entire It may be here in this part of Biangsu province cly ickle, so that the habitants are nearly panic-stieken at this sweden vis picion of the grub pest.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.