Senders of telegrams to Yangtze ports were sadly disappointed on Wednesday by having their messages returned with the written across, "not in working order." Onpersonal enquiries being made at the office they were told that the remark made was a mistake, but that the line was taken up by Government telegrams and that private messages could not be accepted for a matter of two or three days.
Now an ordinary message takes about a fast. steamer's time, and merchants and bankers have to wire "urgent" at treble cost in order to get their messages in the same day, but this recent development of Chinese telegraphy isa new feature.
We wonder what our Hankow friends will say about this exclusion from the outer world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.