The dollar ins been falling rapid ly of Into, If has dropped fron. 2200 to 2800 and has apparently not Teached the bottom " yet. This depreciation +f silver is a result the increasingly large number of bad half-dollars being dumped on us from Chungking and Suifu. Other] places have been more careful of the quality of silver coins which are passable, Luchow has _previoualy accepted most anything. Now the renetion has come and it has caused 'a fall in the price of silver. All half-dollars are being carefully} scrutinized these days and bail ones rejected. Some Russian cloth merchants who have come up from Shanghai to reck their fortunes in Szechuan were badly loaded up with these "steel plates" as the Chinese all them. Twe stranger within the gates is always legal prey for the! wily Szechuanese.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.