The local tax office has decided to put a 18 per cent. ad valorem duty books coming into the province. [The book companies who are ordering their supplies for the fall term have announced that they will refuse to take delivery, There is every prospect of a "book famine" in the autumn, Mr, Moody of Messrs, Mark Moody arrived here this week, bringing up the first charcoal-burning. motor car for demonstration, Rumours regarding smuggled goods from the North continue to fly, but the only actual evidence to hamid so far is the arrival of one shipment of 200 bags of parcels from Tientsin, waiting conin Tientsin. for Chengtu and interior towns, It is to be hoped that a few well-justified confiscations will dampen the ardour of the smug-
Professional beggars and waifs who sleep in murky corners in alleys and Innes received the surprise of their ives this week when they were rounded up by the hundreds and taken to three huge asylums which have been prepared for them, It is to be hoped that the police will be able to maintain adequate sanitation, and avoid repetition of the deplorable conditions in the county gaols Jwhere, since January, nearly 600 prisoners died.
Once more the ferryboat stalwarts who hoped to have a Dragonboat contest have had their hopes quenched by a government order prohibiting the contest, It is now many years since Chungking had a real old-fashioned festival,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.