Opium is still being traded in very freely, and there is not the slightest check over this form of illegal business owing to the usual spirit of squeeze. There are, one might say, almost launch-loads of this drug being carried away from here. The launches, taking advantage of the high water in the rivers, are coming up regularly to this city and taking away quantities every trip. Those who are dealing in it are glad to go by launch. although the prices for this transportation are heavy, and they pass likin stations unmolested. The launches leave here at dusk, pass down as far as Chengyangkuan before daylight, "and perform the remainder of thd river journey, where there may be daner from robbers, in daylight.
hey reach the railway in time to enable these opium merchants" to take the evening train for the ale, where the drug is disposed Recently a branch of the Cooperation in Goodness Association has been begun here and has the backing of the local magistrate. It was started by a Szechuanese in Peking in 1917, but is really an offshoot of the Tao-teh-hsueh-she. Instruction is verbal and there are variouS degrees to which those in the order may at-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.