Once more an embargo against} the shipment of specie from Shanghai to Hankow has been decreed at! the opening of November. It is a peculiar fact that similar prohibitions are proclaimed by various! {factions from time to time, but we do not remember having heard that any of these were ever officially rescinded.
'Hankow needs silver badly, for! the white metal is now the only' feasible medium of circulation there, Apart from banknotes issued by the foreign banks, paper is not accept ed in Hankow, except under duress.
Reference has already been made here about the scheme to redeem the entire Issue of depreciated banknotes in circulation at Hankow one-fifth of face value. The redemption was actually started and probably 4 million dollars in notes (ig, less than 10 per cent. of the total) was bought in. But this did not end the matter for, according to the views expressed by a recent arrival from Hankow, the notes were brought in for redemption by the front door end immediately re-issued by the militarists who carried them. into the market through the back-ate.
The numerous Treasury Notes sre now apparently valueless. With regard to these a somewhat sad anecdote is being related: A peasant recently brought a cartlond of firewood into Hankow. Windivg hic way through the narrow Innes! of the Native city, ha was accosted by an elderly resident who, pointing to the cart, asked what the farmer would sell' the lot for. "In what money do you propose to pay?" asked the farmer. "In Treaszry replied the elderly residen., retorted the peasant, ight for wetigt.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.