The opium tax levied throughout the province seems to have been ven a new name it Fine for transgressing the opium prohibition" and is demanded (and enforced) all, irrespective of cultivating opium or not. In one hsien district, a farmer was required to pay $50 and he refused a¢ he had not cultivated opium. Thereupon fined $200 for "refusing to he last I heard of him in the province those refusing to cul-opium were required to pay. the "tax laziness"! One can only wonder what. prompts the authorit= ies to such strange ways of getting money from the people, For some time past we have had very hot weather, much needed to ripen the grain, but for several da; now it has been wet and cold, can only hope that we shall soon get more sunshine that a good harvest may be secured For some days no mails have come from Hankow; one of our local papers yesterday published a report from Szechuan that Hupeh had falten to the Cantonese; can this true'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.