For some months past, as my notes have indicated, the rich districts of Shuntak and Heungshan have been literally overrun with robbers and ban-dite. Big villages have been attacked, and the brigands, not being content with the customary pillage, have learnt the advantage of carrying off rich residents and holding them for ransom. At Inst, however, the officials have been moved into activity. They and thei soldiers are taking vigorous offer not without result, to clear away some of the scoundrels. I saw sev full of soldiers and their captains, heavily armed, in hot pursuit of thei quarry. It is reported here that not: less than a hundred and thirty of thes robbers have been decapitated dart the last month. The local authority seem to have been invested with considerable powers, and they use them in such @ way as to insure that nally © man loss guilty than shall suffer, rather than that a of death shall esca] south of China are like the submerged tenth in England. Two persons seem to be waiting to take the place of the one who is removed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.