Amoy has just had an official visit from Br, Wu Liente. He came make enquiries regarding the work-{ng of the Amoy Branch of the Netional Quarantine Service. This service was begun primarily for the eneft of emigrants, who intended, to proceed to Malaya, the Netherlands Indies or the Philippines. A. charge, fon behalf of the service, of $1. per ticket issued, is made by' the various shipping companies, participating in this passenger traMlc. The income monthly {0 the local service from this source is considerable, but in addition to this. 2 subsidy has regularly been sent monthly to Amoy from the headquarters of the service Shanghai.
Overseas immigrants and emigrants to or from Amoy are cows to be milked by say and every person oF department, who thinks a dribble can be squeezed from dried-up horny teats. The newly organized, overzealous water police collect 60 cents from each passenger going abroad. The steamer tickets are sold. only through a sub-agent who charges an increase of sometimes nearly 50 per feet. above their cost from the shiping agents. And, of course, $1 10 the quarantine service, 'Those who return are dealt with even more hardly. 'They must pay $1 to the water-police es an examination fee. "When a vessel arrives, the passengers sre herded together' and heads counted. "Their names are taken and the name of the hotel at which "they intend. to reside, and this dollar is collected not from the Passengers but from the hotel proprietor. He, in turn, collects not $1 from every man but $1 for every box the poor man brings with him. 'This law' the hotel keepers find. an excellent one; it gives them a fustlfable reason for extortion. These people who return to China are mostly "coolles belonging to, the peasant class from the interior, They are simple, ignorant men who accept! the extortions es being part of the beneficent laws of the Great Repub-of Ching, their native land.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.