Many refuges are tax in discipline and if friends are allowed in as they Please or the addicts to go on the Street it Is impossible to obtain a cure, A very strong public opinion heeds {o be mobilized against opium, either springing from religious con vietion oF a feeling that the life of the nation depends on the conquest of this foe.
The war on opium will give the rug sellers their chance, Hitherto we have not been troubled much in Shensi with this poison. It 1s good to know that the authorities are alive to the peril and very rigorous search ig made at the railway station of passengers' baggage. A few weeks fage nine people, eight men and one 'Woman, mostly' from Honan, were arrested for carting heroin and morphia, 'They were tried and penteneed to death, To impress the opiilaee they were paraded in rick= shaws through the principal streets before being shot in the public court of the local government administra tion' In the presence of several thousand people.
The big cotton mill to the north of the station here is now In fall work, has an up-to-date plant and employs about 2,000 people, It seems a business proposition to manufacture where the colton is grown and these smoking chimneys are a very visible sign of the industrialization of China, Dr, Ching, head of the Foreign Office here. is returning to Nanking and the office is being closed down.
Ho has been much respected and a farewell feast was given this week in his honour at the Travel Service Hotel.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.