'A Nanking dispatch to hand reports that their Excellencies Chou Fu, Viceroy of the Liangkiang provinces, and Tieh Liang, Special High Commissioner of Army Reorganisation, etc. left that city yesterday forenoon for Wuhu to inspect the proposed site for a new Arsenal at Wanchih, a fow miles distant from the Wuhu. Wei Taotai, Director of the Kiangnan Arsenal, here accompanied their Excellencies.
A Military Academy, specially connected with the Army Reorganisation Department, is shortly to be established in Peking, and its Constitution will be on similar lines to that of itary Academy connected with ang Administration at Paoting, The staff of the Paoting Academy con ists principally of Japanese professors and tutor assisted by Chinese officers who have had their military education in the schools of Japan.
A Proposed Female Industrial School.
A Peking letter states that several Chinese ladies, wives of high Metropolihave in prospect the estab-female industrial school in re all kinds of needlework, embroidering and silk weaving, the last by means of machinery, are to be taught. As Principal of the proposed school, Japanese lady expert is to be engaged, who will have charge of " large staff of Chinese and Japanese instructors in the various lines of work contemplated. This now female industrial school will be moans of spreading education among ti women of China and its success. will encourage similar institutions throughout the empire.
12th December.
The Municipal Gaol for Female Culprits.
Upon the completion of " gaol for culprits the other day by the Municipal Authorities to take the place of the misoruble squalid quarters, under the charge ofj an avaricious and relentless female greier, at the Mixed Court, Magistrate of that tribunal was communicated with, asking that all Chinese females lying under sentence in that Court for offences committed within the Municipal jurisdiction should be transferred to the new gud. The Magistrate appears to have refused his consent to the change, but Yuan Taotai of this port parently much more amenable to reason, for we are informed that, appealed to by the Senior-Consul, his Honour at once sent instructions to the Mixed Court to have the female culprits imprisoned there transferred to the new Mun cipal Gaol for women. It must be borne in mind that the female gaoler of a Chinese yamen is the possessor of a most lucrative billet, " portion of whose income it may be safe to assume finds its way up to higher quarters, so that under the cumstances there need be no surprise at the non-success of a first attempt to what would be the virtual abolition of a post like this. Of those unfortunates whose evil star had put them into the clutches of these female gaolers, there are well-authenticated cases where a victim, on showing inability, or perhaps obstinacy, in refusing to pay for the privilege and, comparatively speaking, luxury of being allowed to sleep on a bed of pine board has been tied to a plank, standing edge wise, und compelled to lie on it until she promised to "pay the fees." This we know is only a comparatively mild torture exercised upon indigent delinquents.
Imitation the Sincerest Form of we learn, on foot, fostered by influential gentry and local notables, to build up the suburbs outside the South-gate of the Native City here after the style and manner of the In ternational Settlements, to be governed by a native Municipal Council and controlled by the Taotai, on the same basis as the Municipal Government of these Settlements is under the control of the Con-salar Body. We further understand that the Municipal by-laws and regulations of the Settlements have been translated into Chinese, which, with a petition from the local gentry and backed up by a commendatory dispatch of Yuan Taotai are to be sent up to their Excellencies Governor Tuan Fang and Viceroy Chou Fu, for their approval and consent.
The Shanghai-Nanking Railway.
Accopy of the regulations of the Hu-Ning Railway was received yesterday by the Shanghai Taotai from 'H.E. Sheng Kung-pao, Director General of the Rail way, with instructions to have them copied out and distributed to the officials of the cities between Shanghai and Nanking through whose jurisdictions the new railway will pass, for guidance of the officials and people concerned.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.