ust now the people are shipping to Chinkiang by boat large quantities of the lily flower and medical root grown here, which I have never seen anywhere else, called "pei soa." I hear that they are realising an unusually od price for both these commodities. he people are just now also very busy gathering a fine crop of sorghum and) millet. The bean crop also promises to be a very fine Some of the ground is also already made ready for wheat. I should have said that while the rain ha® not been excessive, it has been plenty for the ordinary crops, The Annual Fairs.
By reason of good crops and cheap grain the annual fairs have been unusually largely attended, 'That on the 17th of the Gth' moon at Ch'inghwangyi they reported as largo j several myriads of, people from the country being present. The one on thi 1th of this 7th moon also seems to bw deen largely attended. Ib is called the "Ghost or Devil Fair." "Men paint and dross themselves to look like their conceptions of evil spirits and parade the streets, stopping wherever tea is furnished to go through some special performance.
A Big Robbery Frustrated, One striking feature of the one just past was the discovery by the police force of a scheme to commit a big robbery on the 15th on one of the main business streets of this suburb in which we live. About forty men from three different sections had come up among theattendants of this fair, con-coaling thei weapons, ete., just outside the suburb wall. There wore three leaders, one from each locality. These were discover. od and arrested just the day befor were to do their work. 'The stroot that was to be attacked has quite a number of opium bongs' on it, and therefore supposedly much ready silver. Our head official is absent just now, answering, so report says, for failure to manage a murder case here; for which failure he is said to have received $200; or rather the failure is said to have ison in a kind of natural way, as the result of finding $200 extra in his yamen; Phoso head robbers, if they should fall into the hands of what the people call a good official, would very soon be nding tiptoe in cages in view of all passers-by until they died. The would-be robbers are now held by ti herd of the police e~urt awaiting the chief official's return.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.