A visit to the criminal courts showed the same depressed and proved-looking prisoners; the same vacant-looking audience apparently not the least interested in the proceedings, and causing one to wonder, as always, why they attend; the same type of men recording the proccedings—foreign policemen in a weird form of shorthand which is their own invention, but which "gels there," and. Chinese who apparently do just as well though their brushes never get away from the deliberate, delicate, sweeping strokes; the same sharp questioning from the bench; and the same lawyers going for each other like life enemies in the court and joking over it in the ante-rooms. The only difference noticed was the attitude of the Chinese police on uty in the courts, They do not con. duct themselves so authoritatively as in the old court and there ave no stentorian roars for silence when some raw yokel from the country starts discussing se crop with his neighbour. This is not to say that there is any suggestion of slise onder in the courts, but only that there is not quite the former severe atmosphere, Nobody seems to mind, however, and the judges get through the cause lists most expeditiously.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.