To connexion with the rescript on girl-slavery to which our Peking correspondent refers in his letter published in this issue, it is of interest to resail that the first appeal on thi subject in recent years seems to have been in the " Za Tung Pao" of June 24, 1905, with the then recent laws for the liberation of slaves in Siam as leverage. This appeal was sent to every provincial Viceroy, Governor, Treasurer and Judge in the Empire. Then, following the Shanghai riot in December of the same A.|year—a riot worked up, as it tarned out, by Chinese "bad property" owners, in connexion with a consignment of girls from Szechuan, detained by the Manic pal police—a further appeal was sent Lent th de ce to all the H.E. Chen Fa, the then Viceroy of igh provincial officials,—especially to
Nanking, and s good friend of the Christian ature Society. His Excellency yielded to the appeal, and when the Shanghai riot negotiations were ended, himself memorialized the Court for the total abolition of girl-slavery. This was said to have been vourably received, but shelved the while, The next step was to appeal to one of the prominent native editors, saying: "Before and after the riot, your contention was as to the insult and iniquity of arresting an alleged high official's widow on the charge of transporting kidnapped girls you had no word to ssy for the girls themselves and for the hundreds who are undoubtedly kidnapped and sold along the Yangtze Valley. But now that H.E. Chou Fo has memorialized on
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.