The Chinese law acts quickly on occasion. A few days ago a resident in this city was disturbed by dogs barking persistently in an orchard which adjoins his garden and a day or two later a vile smell came from the same orchard. On looking over the wall he found that a neighbour had buried a pig there and had not buried it deep enough. This explained why there were so many dogs abóut, and also accounted for the smell. A message was sent to the owner of the orchard asking him do something about the matter, but he replied that the place was his own atid that he could bury anything he wished even if it did smell.
The public health office was then Wiormed and a policeman was sent io investigate. One sniff was sufficient to convince him that the laws of public health had been contravene ed. He went to the pig owner's house, and hauled off his son to the local gaol, with (the threat that if the pig were not properly buried, the son would be in prison for a month. The pig was attended to the next day, and after three days in prison the young man was let out. This prompt action on the part of the authorities shows a great improvement in matters relating to pub! health.
People in this district often take the law into their ovn hands, and deal out the most drvstic_punishments, Recently a man, known to be a thief, was caught stealing sweet potato shoots (rom a field. The owner of the field intended to let him go, but one of the local villagers who had a grudge against the mam-cavie with a band of men, and they put out the thief's eyes. The punishment seems dreadful, but it is not uncommon in the more remote country districts where the struggle for existence is acute, and tampering with growing crops is really tampering with people's lives.
Many of the blind men in these parts have lost their sight in this Lei
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.