The management of the electric light works is to be under the Ci: Governor's staff, and it has been officially announced that we are to have 3,000 lights to begin with and 000 as was at first declared.
en, the Civil Governor, has had an opportunity of seeing something of the working of the electric light in Yunnan so he is in a position to judge how many lights will be really needed.
Some trouble has arisen between the Kueichow Customs and the agent for the Standard Oil Ca. in this city, and the former have beld up a shipment of oil at the city of Yuping. The consumers are the ones who suffer, for the price of oil has advanced to $20 per case, and the oil in stock is diminishing so rapidly that no shopkeeper will sell more than one tin to a purchaser. We hope the trouble will not only be settled speedily but also settled in such a way that there shall be no repetition of the same.
Raven Way WitH OrfeNvers.
As the authorities are becoming assured in their minds that they have nothing to fear for the present from other provinces the soldiers are being withdrawn from the borders and distributed more evenly throughout the province, where foodstuffs are not so expensive. The scheme is an excellent one but, alas, it will mean suffering for many. To move the different regiment from one place to another large numbers of men and animals will be required and these will be ruthlessly commandeered.
The attitude of the military people toward those who are really offenders, and those who are suspected of being such, baffles description. We have lately heard that it is becoming a common thing for the soldiers to take alleged criminals into the barracks and there bayonet them to death. A traveller informed me to-day that he passed a number of soldiers and' shortly afterwards he came upon a dead body by the side of the road, and when he asked who the man was, and how he came to be killed the people told him that the soldiers thought to take him for carrying their load but when they found he was not able to carry, the officer ordered the men to beat him severely, and they, receiving such an order, thrashed him to death. Oh, that some preacher of oonsness might arise to bring about] ing the present year. the repentance of the soldiers and bring to an end their treatment of the people with violence.
The papers have published a telegram from General Wang Wen-kua Stating that he will be back in Kueiyang within two months to take charge of affairs. It is rumoured that he expects to return vid Hunan. and a_ representative has gone down to Changsha to arrange for his passage through that province,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.