. I have heard several volleys of small arms being
fired off, as if in platoon exercise. All the shops are shut, people
being afraid that the authorities may deal severely with the butchers,
and that bad characters will profit by the excitement to rob and plunder
the shops."

Two days later, October 15:--

"The pork-butchers are still holding out in their guild-house, and
refuse to recommence business until the officials have promised that the
tax on pigs will not be enforced now or hereafter. The prefect has been
going the rounds of the city calling on the good people of his
prefecture to open their shops and transact business as usual, saying
that the tax on pigs did not concern other people, but only the
butchers."

One day later, October 16:--

"The Pah-shien magistrate has issued a proclamation apologising to the
people generally, and to the butchers particularly, for his share of the
work in trying to increase the obnoxious tax on pigs. So the officials
have all miserably failed in squeezing a _cash_ out of the 'sovereign
people' of Ssuch'uan."

I have a similar story from Hangchow, in Chehkiang, under date April 10,
1889, which begins as follows:--

"The great city of Hangchow is extremely dry. There are probably seven
hundred thousand people here, but not a drop of tea can be bought in any
of the public tea-houses. There is a strike in tea. The tea-houses are
all closed by common agreement, to resist a tax, imposed in the
beginning of the year, to raise money for the sufferers by famine."

In the next communication from this correspondent, we read, "The strike
of the keepers of tea-shops ended very quietly a few days after it
began, by the officials agreeing to accept the sum of fifteen hundred
dollars once for all, and release tea from taxation."

This is what happened recently in Pakhoi, in the province of
Kuangtung:--

"Without the consent of the dealers, a new local tax was imposed on the
raw opium in preparation for use in the opium shops. The imposition of
this tax brought to light the fact, hitherto kept secret, that of the
opium consumed in Pakhoi and its district, only sixty-two per cent was
imported drug, the remaining third being native opium, which was
smuggled into Pakhoi, and avoided all taxation. The new tax brought this
smuggled opium under contribution, and this was more than the local
opium interest would stand. The opium dealers adopted the usual tactics
of shutting their shops, th