alight fall of snow has raised the hopes of the farmers, but distress is increasing as food supplies give out. Local authorities are beginning to make investigations, to discuss the allocation of funds for relief, and to plan for some attempt at famine relief at the end of next month. At Pingyangfu, where the schools are highly modernized, there is talk of getting up amateur theatricals on behalf of famine funds. In this city the scholars are taking an extra month's holiday, after denouncing the local official for his dilatoriness in dismissing a number of the local police who, in the execution of their duty, refused to let an inquisitive student pass a barrier on the occasion of a fire in a cotton store.
When the subject of the abolition of extra-territorial privileges comes up for discussion, it is to be hoped that some evidence will be taken about those interesting places where prisoners are detained awaiting trial. Here in Shansi, these "houses of detention" to some extent have been improved, but the system still remains, and the premises are still loathsome. Untried, as well as adjourned cases, civil as well criminal, all contribute their quota to the crowd which ever fills the rooms and courtyards. Though supposed to be separated, half-starved and_ half-clad ruffians in chains invade the quarters of scholars and merchants in the first class defaulters' section. Hygienic and sanitary arrangements are unknown and every summer epidemics claim numerous victims. At the present time, large numbers of people are detained for indefinite periods in connexion with disputes about land mortgages and old debts. Hard times give the occasion for demanding old forgotten debts of tavo or three generations ago, and when no living man can possibly know whether the liability was ever incurred, or how many times the matter may previously have been settled, judgment goes to the possessor of the most "face." Hence, for every debtor in these Chinese Bridewells there is an adversary possessed of the requisite amount of "'face,'"? hoping to extract the uttermost farthing.
In the current issue of the Shansi Anti-Narcotic Society's bulletin, 30 hsien districts report a prevalence of opium smuggling and increasing use ci the illegal "golden pill." This, in tha face of our Governor's enthusiastic anti-narcotic campaign. It is good, however, to note that so large a number of convictions have been secured and that many prisons have a large percentage of drug prisoners,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.