Nov. 20.
Tur Anhui Mint has enjoyed an unenviable notoriety for some time past in connexion with the minting of light weight copper coins, but an even more glaring example of the scandalous methods by which Chinese Government officials in the provinces bolster up their financial position has recently come to light from the same institution. This time the coins emanating from the Anhui Mint are not copper but silver,"' and it appears that a Government Mint has been guilty of the enormity of flooding the country with spurious twenty-cent pieces. The facts have come to light in a curious manner—owing, it appears, to the theft of part of a consignment of such coins from shipping company's hulk at Nanking and to the' subsequent inquiries which followed. We have it on good authority that in the two months of August and September last very large quantities of these spurious coins were shipped from Anking, one company alone having taken 91 cases valued at $363,000. In addition consignments of the same coins arrived at Nanking twice a week by junk, with the result that the local market at that place is now flooded with them and the gen-nine subsidiary coinage is being driven out. Each consignment from Anking was covered by a hu chao issued by the Civil Governor of Anhui in which the contents of the cases were described as dollars" (yin yuan) and on the arrival of each consignment at Nanking a representative the Mint produced the hu chao, passed the consignment, through the Customs as dollars and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.