One of the latest taxes is 500 cash on every pig that is killed. This tax has been farmed out. To find out every pig that is killed in every village would be too great trouble, so villages are levied according to the size, One of the biggest grievances of the people is over the salt, which every one must buy to keep himself in health. The salt comes from the lakes in the Kokonor and 's under the control of the Prince of Kokonor. It is much to be preferred to the salt from the brine pits in China, and is carried far down the country into Shensi and Szechuan provinces. During the Manchu regime it was sold here ab 15 cash per catty. In the region of Hsuan Tung a Salt Bureau was opened and the price raised to 90 cash, but a riot in the city of Huangyuen, destroying the Bureau and scattering the salt, with the flight of the official, closed down the bureau for some time.
The latter has been reopened and the price gradually increased till it is now sixty cash per catty or foun times the original price. Whereas the price of salt has increased the Bureau refused to pay the Mongolians a higher price, consequently they have ceased to bring any more; and salt from down the country is being brought here to be sold. The price being prohibitive for the country people, they are now digging it out in the hills themselves. There is a certain proportion of salt in every lump of earth, something like one twentieth The continual levying of addition-the new dynasty will not draw the hearts of people towards it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.