Chinkiang, Oct. 9.
Now that the weather has cleared and become more settled, the workmen are all very busy repairing the damage done by the recent typhoons. Jetties are being reconstructed;, but it will be some time yet bat ore some of the steamer. hulks will be fixed up as they were formerly.
All the government and mission schools have re-opened and have full enrolment of students. educational authorities in part of the province are certainly doing their best to push this branch of work. Unfortunately there is not a great supply of teachers capable of taking hold of the nigher branches of education. It is to be hoped that efforts will be made to train more men and women, in order that they may be able to occupy these positions with success. There are large, fine convenient buildings with good equipment arfd mo-lak of young! men and women anxious to learn. Earlier in the year there was a strike amongst the students in one of the high schools owing to some misunderstanding with the masters. This has now been settled and work goes on as usual.
The civil governor of the province is becoming concerned about tha moral welfare of his people, and now proclamations are posted throughout the city and district, prohibiting gambling, opium smoking, and ordering the lottery offices to close their businees. These three evils are pretty prevalent in this city and' will need to be dealt with, with a strong hand if they ara to be suppressed.
The other night a band of five or six armed robbers broke into an oil shop not far from the British Conceesion and helped themselves to about $200. The carly hours of one morning were recently disturbed by a vigorous. fire alarm, and the fire proved toa be in a sugar godown owned by Messrs. Butterfield & Swire. The building was gutted and the stock of sugar was ruined. The Municipal fire brigade was soon on. the spot.and fortunately the river was near, so streams of water were not long in being poured on to the fire.
This year's rice harvest in the immediate neighbourhood of Chinkiang was so poor that if was hardly worth harvesting. Blight and mildew were largely responsible for this. Many of the fields between tha railway line and the foot hills have been under water since the floods of last year', and it seems a pity that some of the Famine Relief money spent on good. roads, was not spent in cutting ditches amd widening creeks so that this land might have been drained off. Now that the new rice is prt upon the market, tha
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.