Besides the house tax a charge the capital of all industrial concerns and businesses, including ordinary shops, of one per cent, being levied, In the ease of shops the value of th¢ stock is the basis of the levy. A further devi has now been put into operation: foreign goods after passing through the Customs House have to pass further bervier and pay two per cent, to the local governme This move is causing great di satisfaction and the foreign goods merchants have united to protest and have written holding up all their orders for foreign goods in the meantime, One trade seriously, affected is the Swatow drawn-work, which employs a large number of women and girls in the villages up and down the district, and whose me and other cloth is' imported, Recently Swatow has been infest= ed by great numbers of beggars and the new administr has Jopened a workhouse for them in an old fort. They have been taken off the streets and lodged there, and their diseases tabulated, and ori, If the experiment is successful and this unfortunate class can humanely treated, it will be a great Public benefit,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.