If business is a barometer, local readings are low. No exports worthy of mention, imports tew. excepting sugar, rising in, price. Bank of China notes at par with and exchangeable for silver are popular.
The demand for building materials in Japan hag raised the price of foreign lumber. Native woods are sympathetic in upward tendency.
Early damp and late dry weather has reduced the rice crop to six-tenths of normal yield. Hoang are much below the-average. An unusual worm-pest has blighted the candle-berry tree. Tobacco leaf is also impaired.
Money is available to merchants at twelve per-cent., land-owners at twenty, small farmers at thirty per-cent. interest. Houses bulla ing are rented before completion. wall is coming down slowly, brick 800 years old. The sale at threa cents each. They are firm and hard almost as stone The new educational system being tried. Popular education night schools started with full attendance but voluntary teachers not satisfactory, a paid staff 18
Everybedy says there will be no war, but many are Dervous over rumours of an invasion of Ché- -kiang Province by a flank move-mani to cut the railway. Soldiers are drilling daily. Border lines are watched, water ways guarded. Those who think they know, say that Tuchun Lu will be able io helld his own against all-comers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.