Front un Own Commsroxocre Chadtung, Yun, Apr. 7.
Matches are stil not generally used many Parts of this region. Cheap coal and ollier fuel results in there being a generous fire in most homes and shops and a lighted shaving or maggot often conveys. fire from one point to another, within or without the home. It is not strange that dur-Ing the recent long dry spell many fires in the hills and some in the villages have occurred. In one village 20 houses were burned down, with some loss of life, the Are being fanned by a sti wind. The timber burned on the hills Is a serious economic Toss.
Of recent years opium has had such 2 hold on this province, that 3 lightening of the restrictions in re: gard (o its growth and use is. Indeed indication of the day which is surely coming when this drug will be very little used. It is now required that all opium must be turned {nlo the government bureaux, and all purchases made from these bureaux. This monopoly by the local authori-les seems well managed and a few days ago scores of arrests were made because consumers were making use of hoarded opium.
Naturally it Ie diMeult to determine whether a pipe of opium has been purchased from the proper author!- ties, but the secretly stored stocks will eventually be exhausted. There is rumour that the next step will be to Ileense opium lamps, but the effectual application of such a plan will be dimeult, "specially in the cottered country regions.
Recent snow and rain have broken the threatened drought and the prices of staple foodstuffs cease to Soar, but suficlent moisture is. still Tacking. The relative humidity has remained very constant for three months, the average being about 50 per cent. Planting, long delayed, is beginning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.