A great deal of the paper was made up of contributions by local residents afflicted with the garrulous complaint of cacoethes scribendi who addressed articles and letters to the editor on all manner of erudite questions which would certainly now not be regarded as the news of the day. There were a number of correspondents in the outports and in the interior who contributed articles on Chinese life, some of which, as those of Dr. Arthur Smith, was eventually to become classics. One of the fea-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.