We understand that acoutract made imo ago by H. E, Sheng Kung-pao jese_merchant for sleepers needed for the Hu-Ning Railway, has been cancelled by his Excellency in default, on the ground that the lumber has not arrived on the date as agreed upon in the contract and not been deliver-eleven at the expiration of the grace limit allowed for the delivery. Sheng Kung-pao, we hear, has also sent a communication to the Japanese Consular authorities requesting that the merchant in question be officially notified of the cancellation of his contract by the Director-General of the Hu-Ning (Shang-bai-Nanking) Railway.
The " casson Why. native correspondent in Peki writing about the birthday celebrations of H.I.M. the Empress-Dowager, last month, and referring to the privilege granted H. E. Wu Ting. Junior Vice-President of the Waiwupu, and several other high, but comparatively unknown Metropolitan officials, of riding on horseback within the sacred precincts of the -Forbidden City, states that this honour was merely granted to the officials mentioned on account of the lucky fact that they also, like her Majesty, were in their seventieth year, and was meant as a compliment to the Empress Dowager's ago.
The Empress Dowager's Taboo of Birthday Presents.
It will be remembered by our readers that previous to the celebration of H. I. M. the Empress-Dowager's birthday anniversary last mouth, several special Imperial decrees were issued wherein her Majesty announced he: stern determination not to accept presents from her Ministers and high officials in the provinces, " owing to the deplorable jand poverty-stricken state of the country the fact that a devastating war was being fought by two foreign Powers within her Majesty's dominions; the unusual spread of discontent in the provinces; and the rebellion in Kuangsi." Her Majesty oven wont so far as to give as the reason for not accepting presents from certain members of the-foreign Legations in Peking, "that since she had forbidden her Ministers and high officials in the provinces from sending her birthday tribute—which according to precedent they were in duty bound to do—she could not venture to allow. her outside friends to do it." Our native correspon dent in Peking, who, by the way, isin a peculiarly favourable position to know nearly everything that happens in the Imperial Palaces and the Groat Boards of the Capital, tells us that the value of the birthday presents her Majesty recei from the Princes, Dukes, Nobles, high Ministers of the Metropolis, and high provincial authorities, aggregated to, at the very least computation, quite eleven million taels. Indeed, the official estimate as made and reported to the Empress-Dowager by her Chief fid of the Court specially Eunuch, Li Lien-ying, and four con-
Majesty to act as valuers, put the total in round numbers as fifteen, and a-half million taels. Everything thnt had any intrinsic or abnormal value—gold precious stones, pearls, pink corals of unusual size, bronzes,' antiques, green jade stones, foreign mechanical toys encrusted with diamonds, gems and heralds, cloisonne, were' represented amongst these birthday gifts, which her Majesty sternly forbade her subjects to give her. But they are now snugly and securely stored in her Majesty's specially constructed vaults of steel and granite within the Palace precincts. Men who had been cashiered and desired to regain their official rank.and titles,, as well those whose ambition was to got appointed to Incrative posts like the Shanghai, Chinkiang, or Hankow Taotaia seized this opportunity to buy thi way into Imperial favour, and as it purchase alien on the next lucrative vacancy. Certain officials whose gifts amounted to only Tis, 10,000 in value wore put on the Imperial private black list_ and their "trivial" tributes cast aside and returned to the men who had been deputed to carry them to Peking—istence of some thousands of li; while one man, a certain ex-emissary of the Empress Dowager in 1898, obtained special favour by presenting her, amongst other very valuable things, with a rare pink coral Ju-i, or sceptre, with nine branches—beautifully and artisti cally made up, and delight to ti Imperial eye. Itis sid that he has been "gs good as promised" the next vacancy in the Shanghai Taotaiship, when our present gonial Taotai is promoted elsewhere, "always providing that the donor's former questionable record of bigoted conservatism and strong reactionary views be not objected to by the Ministers and Consuls of the Foreign Powers who have large stakes in Shanghai." If no objections are made. against such an appointment, mandarin prophets declare that the next Taotai of Shanghai will ed Ch'ing Kuan, an alleged jannermann, or Hanchung. ichang provinces, scccrding to a Nanking dispatch, is expected to reach that city to-morrow, and take over his seals of office from' H.E. Tuan Fang on Monday, the 5th instant. The latter official will leave Nanking on the 6th, and may be expected to reach Shanghai some time daring the end of next week.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.