"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 Ssŭch'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, thus transferring the _onus_ of opposition to their customers. These last paid a threatening visit to the chief authority of Pakhoi, and then wrecked the newly established tax-office. This indication of popular feeling was enough for the local authorities at Lien-chou, the district city, and the tax was changed so as to fall on the foreign opium, the illicit native supply being discreetly ignored, and all rioters forgiven." So much for taxation. Let us take an instance of interference with prescriptive rights, in connection with the great incorruptible viceroy, Chang Chih-tung, to whom we are all so much indebted for his attitude during the Siege of the Legations in 1900.