First, one change has been effected and the likin has been made a separate department under the control of the Governor. In consequence, out district official who has thus been obliged to resign a goodly revenue, is by no means a happy man.
He will still have something to do, however.
A Strange Ca Recently he hod to take a strange case in hand. Ivo men, who woul'l in other lands be described as fellows who get their living by their wits, one day fell to quarrelling. They hud just succeeded in forming a society h was to be a guild to control all transportation from or to the canal. Byats an-loading would he taken in hand by one msn, who would settle the price to be pet em: ployees, and see to it that no other tha men had any share in the gains. These two men affected to Lo the leaders After asserting each his right to Jendership, one suddenly drew his knife (the reader will suppose of cour-e for the purpose of stabbing his antagonist), aud—cut off a liberal slice of flesh from one of his own legs! "Pooh," said the other, "I can do better than that," and unbuttoning his coat, he sliced off'a large piece from the flesh over his heart.
Tt so happene'l that the magistrate's son, heard of the affair, and so the the matter came to the magistrate's ear. Both men were arrested, but the man least injured escaped. To the other fellow the magistrate is reported to have said: Ha, if it doesn't give you sny pain to slice off your own flesh, it certainly woulta't be paint al to use the knife on someone e's." Accordingly in durance vile, with the promise of yoing into exile, should be not die of his self-inflicted wound before judgment can be given.
The Germans ocovsionally visit the city this time for the purpose of Examining the Canal, to ascertain something as to the cost and feasibility of making it deep enough t" be of practical benefit to merchants. Their report is favourable. Two difficulties they will be celled uprun to face should the.vernment give them the One is that of preventing the canal silting up either from the water of the Yellow River, or from the equally. muddy stream which flows past the city. The other difficulty is to secure water to keep the canal supplied at such times of the year, as neither of the above streams rise high enough to flow into the canal itself.
Retrenchment isin the air. We are threatened with the loss of the chief military official here, because of the lack of funds. The powers above will no doubt find him " place, but hot here, and the saving is to help out somewhere else. Perhaps it will yo to make up-the loss of likin, for among the multitude of unsettled plans. is this one, whether to retain the post at this city as a likin station at all.
It is one of the misfortunes for dwellers in China, that Sir Henry Maine who i troduced so graphically the "Village Com-inanities" of India t" the English race, never made a study of thos" in China. How delighted he would have been to have discovered in the village elders and other magnates, survivals of a pre-historic age; or in customs of which the average European is totally ignorant, the result of growth, change, and the gradual hardening into the permanent conditions of tu-day. The custom here r-quires the owner of real estate to offer it to the neighbours, before it can ba sold to anyone outside that little number. And, as the writer recently discovered, the unwritten law is that the person who has rented property ball not sub-let ut a higher price; but the difference must be paid to Doubtless the world of China around uses fall of just such unseen regulatic shave more weight with the -people than the laws, for the reason that they affect them where they are most sensitive—in the pocket.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.