Already the poorer quarters of Shanghai are suffering from the increased prices of commodities. Chinese cabbages, one of the staples a Chinese household, have doubt led and frequently trebled in value, while other commodities have suffered a similar increase in price, rendering native vegetables almost prohibitive for the poorer classes.
In many localities in the interior, special sacrifices have been made to propitiate the god of rain. In Hunan the native butchers were forbidden by military order to slaughter hogs for a period of 15 days. Curiously enough it so happened that on the afternoon of the lith day there was a slight shower, so the ban was lifted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.