Siangtan, Hu, Mar. 22 Opium smokers are being hard pressed to quit the habit, and already two hospitals have been designated as habit breaking places. other hospitals are recognized addicts with certificates from other hospitals are not recognized. Since this is a. money making scheme the opium' addicts are caught In the meshes of "pay-or-suffer" the con squenees.
There is a new order that all able-bodied men visit favour three days on road work, or pay the! equivalent. The writer is reminded of conditions in Ameria nearly fifty years ago when there was such a law in many states. A road commissioner was elected who over saw the carrying out of such a law on country roads. Every farmer had to! give his time and the time of a fear of horses to repair country The result often was impassable} roads and that is happening in some places in Hunan. In a recent country trip the writer travelled over several miles of newly-made road. Red earth was piled in the middle of the road no stones yet laid and no surface made, The spring rains made that road a veritable mire and carriers and chair-bearers battled through it with. the greatest dimculty.
If the road commissioners, if such j there be, could have made half as much and finished it with proper surfacing, it would have been a great good piece of work. "As it was '2 nightmare. The cost of progress is sometimes very great.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.