Assuredly Lin was not a wise man to desire to be civil governor of Hunan. At present there are no applicants for the vacant post. A substantial deputation waited on Gen. Chao Hong-ti to ask him to take over both offices. The General immediately declined. For anybody else, the offer means the acceptance of a post without anything but a name. The civil governor need never trouble himself to order anybody to do anything that he would not do without the order for nobody will do anything merely on account of the order. He will get no income—but he will have to stand all the hard words if he does not incur the lawful expenditure of the government. He may have the appointment of all the magistracies in the province and in nine cases out of ten, his appointees would find predecessors quite ready to give up their equally useless appointments.
Apparently the civil government. of the province is openly declared to be derelict.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.