Jx the suiamary of views of the Chinese Press which appears to-day on page 721, the following paragraph will attract immediate attention Ugly rumours about certain politicians juggling with the funds raised for famine relief purposes in influencing the coming election of M.P.'s and for their own aggrandizement have been afloat so persistently that subscriptions to famine funds cannot but be adversely affected and genuine efforts on the part of conscientious famine relief workers stultified to some extent, Later on in the same article, we find further reference to bribery as already becoming an open scandal in connexion with the campaign for next year's Parliament. We have no other knowledge of this matter than what appears in the Chinese Press. But there is nothing, we regret to say, inherently improbable about the report, while in many different ways the belief gains ground that certain Chinese officials are not scrupling to make money for themselves out of their starving countrymen's misery.
In this connexion serious allegations against Tuchun Tsao Kun, of Chihli, and Tuchun Chang Tso-lin, of Manchuria, reach us from Peking. At the outset, it is quite possible that these two generals personally are innocent, and that the offenders are among their entourage and using their superiors' names without their knowledge. In that case we look confidently to Generals 'T'sao and Chang to make investigation and put a stop to an iniquity by which their names are being blackened. First as regards the Tientsin-Pukou line it is stated that enormous quantities of rice are being
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.