This place is, like the Japanese, doing good deal but not much, because the reporting. time jot come. The Chinese time up to " chingming" is not very valuable. In town they have been flying their kites; in the country they have been waiting for the frosts to cease, to start the Planting time. The small scholars have got down to their desk and are on their way to another year at the musty volumes of ancient sages. The shopkeepers have dusteil their wares. The officials, especially the smaller ones, are planning the " squeezes" of the year. The beggar and the refugee are rejoicing over the return of the warmer days. Spring fever has come with its attend ing train of fevers, abscesses, ulcers, anit dyspepsias. We have not said much in the past about the Medical Mission Work, and its relation to these disease-laden people. Perhaps in this time of non. activity in things startling, we might think of some of these more subtle influences whic! make the greater things possible. 'This morning there came two mon to our hospital who had come a six days' journey to cee if we could heal a case of leprosy. We wer: sorry to say we could not. But what was it that would cause two men to take suc'. a journey? They had heard of other diseases being cured which to them was as wonder ful as to cure a case of leprosy, and havin, no other possible chance they come to with the slim hope that we may be able ts turn beck the ravages of this dread disease. There is another man who has come niiles to have us open his blind eyes. The. have no cures for itch, ulcers, conjunetiviti:, fistulas, hemorrhoids, coughs, eczema, the hundred other complaints to which they are specially heir. The cures wrought quinine, sulphur, and borax are marvelloi in their eyes. And the same cures are doin; 2s much toward opening China to the fluence of modern civilisation os all trade in the open ports put together. 1 is showing them that the foreigner has som: thing to relieve their distress and immedi needs. One need relieved causes them discover that they have other needs, they begin to investigate to see if we nav means for supppling these also. Th medic." work is turning a suspicious and fearin. people into warm advocates of forei:: methods. We have opened a School of Western Learning here. The applicants who have finish the Chinese usual course of study far on: numbered the beginners. We had to mak out an entirely different schedule. Yoi men who have been teaching Chinese scho: for years are sitting there _stadyin: arithmetic, geography, and English. And they are willing to pay for it too. Comino jessen are beginning to buy the S.D. books, nob willing to let the literati bey monopoly of Western progress.
The Money Question.
There is another burning question w! should receive more attention than has ber given to so vital a subject. It was discussed come time since but like many other ques tions has been laid on the shelf to make room for other questions. This is the money question. It is bad enough to have two Kinds of currency as in Shanghai, but when three or four are being entered on the account books i becomes wearisome. But what shall we say when these are all the time changing their relationship to each other. We have the Mexican, the Kiangnan, the Hupeh, the Anhui, andthe Spanish dollar. Then the tael gets in a show now and then and likewise the dollars of other provinces. The ten-cent piece has a fluctuating value and so has the cash. The latter are large and small and mixed. The only coin that has a standard value at present is the ton-cash piece. Anhui and Mexican dollars are not popular in this place. The others are worth 800 large cash, except the Spanish which demands 1,160 of that baser coin. The hundred cash strings by actual count amount to 98 cosh. Small cash can be used purchase many things. Others demand large cash. Farmers want the Spanish dollar for their produce; shopkeepers by necessity will take either, "All have welconied the ten-cish piece, 'A national standard coin with the fractional coins of fixed value on the decimal scale would be one of the greatest blessings the business of this country ever received. "But then, sua know, that would do away with a lot of for those who have a little power and influence. Choke the "squeeze devil" and China will be mised from the dead. Just closing at Nanking is the Christian Bible Instivute.
Nearly the entire force of native helpers of the Central China Christian Mission hava been in attendance and many from other missions. It is a new institution but on which bids fair to be of long life and great value to the mission work.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.