A Community Apparently. Resw the Normal Life of Former Times and with Hopes of Prosperity now A SPeciat, Connestonnexr Hankow, Nov. 12. not an easy matter to give 1 clear and true account of present conditions sin. Hankow, but so much of a highly-coloured nature has been written on the subject that the feels it is only fair to record the opinion of an unbiassed visitor, once resident, now spending a fow weeks in the port.
The general appearance of the Settlements is clean and. orderly: the "Bund promenade will never regain' its old beauty since the ud mission of Chinese of all closees brings with it so many of the class that are dirty and undesirable, but beyond this there is mot much to be remarked: the old British Couneit Purchased during its last year a motor water cart and other modern plant which is still functioning, thus Keeping the streets clean and well watered in spite of labour troubles, Roads are being mended, if -only with patches of crushed stone, but they are mot in noticeably bad repair. A number of stray" dogs, the emaciated un-muzzled "works"
China, may be seen wandering unchecked, but their number will not fneroase unduly so long as. gue not allowed to accurm Native police stand at every street corner and traffic is fairly well directed: the groutly increased nur-bor of Chinese police is, in fact, very prominent feature and one can only wonder where the money:
coming from to pay them. The anti-foreign feeling. would appear to be gone, or at least forgotten for the time being, and foreign men, women, and children go treely about out molestation: the fact. that the ever-watchful Navy is prominently von the river in an obvious explanation of this, but one must take duets as they are, whatever their basic reason may be.
The Labour Question game is plentiful at the following prices:—Pheasant 95 cents, teal 40 ents, snipe 24 cents, pigeon 30 cents, al these being the price charged by the cook to the foreign consumer, and in all probability much higher than the price actually charged by the supplier.
Rice of any sort was recently as high as $26 per picul and almost unobtainable even -at that pric snow it is. about $11 (No. 1) and $7 (No. per picul and readily obtainable.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.