'According to a Canton dispatch the insurgents of Kuangsi province have begun their periodical disturbances this year by' starting to attack the Imperial troops. stationed at Nanning. So far the in surgents have succeeded in defeating the government troops three times while the former have suffered loss only once. Viceroy Tsen has therefore appointed General Ting of the Yuchiang circuit to take 12,000 troops with him to suppress the rising in Nanning and Sz'enfu, giving that oticer one month to restore peace in that region, failing which the General is to be denounced to the Theme as incapable.
3rd May.
The Removal of the Kiangnan Arsenal.
'A Wuhu, Anhui province, dispatch reports the arrival at that port on the 30th ultimo of Viceroy Chang Chih-tung from Wuchang, and also the arrival at the first named place of Viceroy Wei Kuang-t'ao on the same day from Nanking. The object of the meeting of the two most powerful Viceroys of Central Chins is in connection with the removal to the vicinity of Wuhu of the Kiangnan Arsenal works, which project was first reported in these Notes" some months ago, Russian Doings in Lower Manchuria.
A Moukden dispatch of the 25th ultimo states that the unlucky inhabitants of the towns of Litawan, Tashihchiao, Laopien, Hsinglungtien, Kaolitun, Kuchiatse and Ch'uanhsintien, which are situated between Moukden and Hsinminton, within a radius of forty miles, are deeply exasperated against the Russian soldiery quartered in their vicinity. The latter are reported as making constant visits to those towns for the purpose of foraging—without payment—for wine and eatables and seizing fowls and ducks wherever they may be seen, Natives meeting these soldiers on the high roads, it is reported, are also ruthlessly despoiled and there is no redress open for the unfortunate people. It is hardly to be wondered then that all the inhabitants of Manchuria are daily praying for the appearance of the Japanese forces.
Proposed Union of Chinese Merchants.
The Shangpu, or Board of Comnierce of Peking, is sending two officers, namely, Yang Tao-lin and Shih Tso-chen, to tour Singapore, Penang, Malacca, and other islands in the south with the object of forming associations of Chinese merchants there who shall work in unison with similar associations in China, all being under the control of the Shangpu. Evidently Chinese are also learning the truth of the old adage that union is strength, and it does not need any decided perspicuity of vision to see that if the Shangpu's plan succeed no large body of men in the world will be so powerful as the proposed united associations of Chinese merchants.
Guns and Ammunition for Peking.
In response to telegraphic instructions from the Army Reorganisation Department of Peking, Viceroy Wei Kuang-tao of Nanking sent recently as a first instalment up north twenty-eight quick-mountain guns, two hundred shells an, two hundred solid shot together with nearly 5,000 Ibs. smokeless powder and fuses, tubes, ote., sufficient to equiy three mountain batteries. All the above were made at the Kiangnan Arsenal and the Lunghua Powderworks.
Ammunition for Honan. dispatch from Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, reports the arrival there of five million Mauser rifle cartridges purchased by the Governor of Hunan through the agency of the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. The price paid for the cartridges'is stated to have been something like Tls. 85,000, or Tls. 17 per thousand. The cartridges, it appears, are not for the magazine Mausers but for the old fashioned single-fire rifles.
Russians reappearing West of the Liao.
A Hsinmintun dispatch states that of late unprecedented numbers of Russian soldiery have again begun to invade Chinese neutral territory west of the Liao river.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.