Off the main route over which the political forces push their way, Hangchow holds a special interest for the foreign observer. Perhaps it is that the reports we receive of events and views there are more carefully winnowed by our correspondent than in the majority of places in China, but there seems more of a practical atmosphere about them than those elsewhere. The beneficence of moral uplift seems less emphasized in their communications than a practical appreciation of how to do something worth doing, no matter if it will fail to resound throughout the whole country. The Provincial Assembly, also, when it meets always appears to have something tangible at the back of its mind.
the circumstances it is not surprising to seo that schemes of real importance get a good chance of development there. Only the other day a leading merchant mooted a modern water supply for the city—to lay a pipe-line 21 miles in length—and at once the electricity people saw in it a chance to go in for water turbines instead of steam. Next comes a motor bus service, to mention only the schemes immediately on hand. Hangchow has had the benefit of General Lu Yung-hsiang's rule for some time past, and has been able to think about things without the turmoil.of strife in its ears, which goes to show where the whole of China might speedily be were the Tuchuns of another class than Gen Lu banished and their troops held in leash.
PER communication from Szechuan indicates that. as the result of hail storms and floods last summer, famine condiditions prevail in many districts of that province. A report from foreign sources in Kueichow states that want is felt there also, a distressing feature of the situation being that, owing to a relaxation of the opium regulations, poppy is to some extent supplanting cereals as a field crop, the peasants in some cases pulling up rape _and cereals to make room for it—Reu ter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.