We have had so much rain during the later summer and autumn that} the rice crops almost throughout the province have been very poor and it is feared that there will be much distress this winter. And the prevalence of robber bands in so many paris of the country makes the out look a bad one. While the present} Provincial Government is doubtless doing its best to suppress Iawlessness, its authority is not as great jas was that of the late General Chow Hsi-cheng. He had an effective way of dealing with the robber problems; if robber bands showed themselves in any district, Chow] held the local district headmen responsible for all losses; it did not} take long for these men to realize that it was worth their while to see that the Inw was maintained! the same time General Chow kept. strict hand on all the district magistrates who were made accountable; for the good conduct of the various, grades of headmen, Tributes to ani Able Ruler Speaking of General Chow, his jeoffin was brought yesterday' within eleven miles of this city, to Kouchang, and all the high authori ties were there to receive it. It is to be taken by a "short-out" road to Tungtze hsien (Chow's home) for burial. I say advisedly his coffin, for as in the cases of the late Tai Kan, Civil Governor of Szechwan, Who' was killed at or near Chengtu, and the late General Yuan Tsu-ming, who was killed in Hunan, his body'is probably not inside; for it could not be found, Great progress has been made towards the setting up of the bronze, statue of General Chow on the site of what was the North Gate of this: city. A very well built pedestal now nearly completed and the! statue is already here; on the whole, it appears to be a fairly good lik One hopes that no future Government will be so mean as to have it removed, for Chow truly deserves well of Kueichow, and indeed of China in that he preserved the peace of one of its provinces.
'A correspondent to your says that Chow an opium sot; this is not correct he was an opium smoker, but he was not a sot." Ho was a most active man: could that! be said of a sot? Surely not, Rice is a failure this year, but evidently this cannot be said of opium, for great caravans of it are almost daily either entering or lea ing the city, coming from the west and (most of it) going south to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.