The court was founded because of the then burning question concerning jurisdiction over the ever-increasing Chinese population in the Settlement. Hitherto all cases involving Chinese were relegated to the district magistrate, In the few cases concerning foreigners, foreign consular representatives watched the. proceedings, to little or no purpose. Criminals continually escaped punishment and in civil jurisdiction, Chinese officials displayed an alarming unconcern for evidence.
In the old Mixed Court the system was introduced of having foreign consular representatives or assessors sitting jointly and later watching the proceedings with the judges, in for-
The old system of assessors was perpetuated, but the agitation for its abolition grew in intensity. Clashes of opinion between foreign assessors known as assessors of the Senior Consul and the Chinese judges became more frequent.. Vigorous protests were made by the assessors over the judgments of their Chinese colleagues on the bench which the judges resented with no little acrimony.
Because of the differences with foreign consular representatives and the frequent attempts of the Chinese military and other authorities to usurp the powers of the court, the position of its president, virtually its chief executive, was spectacular. Some of them showed ' open hostility to foreign influence while others were at variance with Glasgow, May 19. Students' Day did not bring in the big sum of money for charity the Collectors had anticipated.—They realized that on account of the innumerable calls upon purses because of the war there would not be the same big response but on the whole the sum collected was disappointing. it was one of the smallest secured Óor a number of years, This was really surprising for on the day it appeared that the citizens were giving with a zest and a willingness that had characterized contributing in the past. Possibly, though, more coppers were dropped into the boxes and less silver than before.
The day was a huge success from the point of view of the citizens for the students were just at their best and performed in their usual inimitable way their amusing antics. It was noticeable that they gave much more attention 1e the attractive young ladies than to the elder ones but this naturally was only to be expected. Still it might account for the fact that the total amount secured was not as large as was hoped.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.