It is with much regret that we have to chronicle the sudden death at the age of seventy-eight in his yamen at Nanking yesterday morning of his Excellency Li Hsing-jui, Viceroy of the Liangkiang provinces and Imperial High Commissioner of the Nanyang Administration, i.e., Superintendent of Trade and Naval and Military Defences of the Southern and Riverine and Maritime provinces. Excellency was a native of Hunan province, and in June 1887 was appointed Minister to the Court at Tokio. He did not remain there long, as he went into mourning for his father's death in September of the same year. In April 1895 he was appointed Taotai of Tientsin and in the summer of the same year was transferred to the Chefoo Taotaisbip. The next year ho was promoted Salt Commissioner of the Ch'ang-Lu Circuit of Chibli province, and in March 1897 made Provincial Judge of Fukien; he was promoted Provincial Treasurer of the same province in 1899, and again promoted in 1901 Governor of Kuangtung province. Last year he was promoted Viceroy of the Min-Che (Fu-seemed that he did not got along amicakien and. Chekiang) provine where it bly with his colleague Ch'ung Shan, the Tartar General of Foochow, with the result that he was transferred as lately as last month to the Liangkis Viceroyalty, exchanging places wit his fellow-provincial, Wei Kuang-t'ao. Although @ man of such an advanced age and physically weak, his late Excellency retained all his faculties (except that he was slightly deaf) and was up to the day of his death remarkably energetic and alive to the responsibilities of his high offices. Being displeased at the slipshod methods of his predecessors, the late Viceroy gave orders for the inauguration of a number of drastic reforms for the better government of the provinces under him, while the laggard manner which distinguished the old regime in the transaction of intornational affairs was to be exchanged for promptitude and intelligent management by the institution of a Chief Bureau of Foreign Affairs at Narking, under the direction of a very able and clover oficial, H. E. Yang Wen-ting. By his death China loses' a good officer which as Chinese patriots say "is just China's bad luck, as usual."
The Acting Viceroy Ad Interim.
We believe that, during the interregnum between the appointment and coming new Viceroy of the Liangkiang, His Excellency Huang Chien-kuan, Provincial Treasurer at Nanking hold_the Viceregal seals, until the arrival of H. E. Hu Ting-kau, the Treasurer-designate, when the former official will proceed to his new post at Chinan, Shantung. It is not likely that Governor Tuan Fang will be able just at present to leave his own post for Nanking.
The Taotai-designate of Tientsin and former Taotai of Hankow (Han-Huang-Té Intendancy of Hupeh Province), His Excellency Liang Tun-yen, accompanied by his family, arrived here from Hankow yesterday en route for his new post at Tientsin. His Excellency was given an informal-dinner of welcome by his comrades of the Chinese Educa-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.