NEWS FROM JAPAN.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1700, 1 August 1879, Page 2

NEWS FROM JAPAN.

[PEBSS AGENCY CORESPONDENT.] YOKOHAMA, May 15. There is a great outcry hero against official trading, and in favor of the exclmion of members of State Departments from interfering in trading pursuits. The present condition of trade is considered alarming. The coasting service is a monoply in the hands of an individual, freights ere exorbitantly h : gh in consequence, and certain officials are openly deriving benefit from this tax upon the producing power of the country. The rice trade is a close monoply, the Impel ial Government exporting it on their own account, the consequence being that the only benefit the farmer can derive from a surplus of rice is its purchase by the Government, whose avowed object is to keep the price of this staple food up to a high figure, to encourage producers with the hope of a fictitious profit. The whole of the fisheries in the North are in the hands of official trading companies. There is no industry or commercial enterprise possible in Japan that is not interfered with and finally absorbed by the same few persons who have Government influence on their side. The effect upon business is most depressing, and means the extinction of foreign trade and individual Native enterprise. The annexation of Loochoo to the Japanese empire is accomplished. A Governor has been appointed, an educational system is being organised, and a garrison of one thousand troopers is to be established. Although China is irritated at the action of Japan, she does not intend to raise the question at present. A disturbance is reported to have occurred in the Japanese settlement of Lusin, Corea. Some officers belonging to a Japanes corvette, while walking in the streets of the native town were mobbed by a large number of Coreans and rather roughly treated, though happily no lives were lost. The affair had a very serious aspect for some time, as the Coreans closed the gates of the city and obstructed the roads by standing in a line across them, but, after some little difficulty, harmony was restored. Japanese papers state that the Government intend to connect Eoo Choo with Japan by means of a telegraph cable, which will run thence to Kagoshima, and that a sui vey will shortly bo commenced. The increase in the traffic receipts on the Government railways for the past month is about 5500d015. more that the corresponding month of the previous year. Dr. John T. Veitch, who at one time served in New Zealand, gives the following cure for the cholera which has broken out in several districts, and is a source of considerable anxiety to the Government. He says — “ The course of treatment recommended was found very efficacious which I was medical officer at Renan g. The system pursued by me x the Penang Hospitals during the epidemic of cholera in 1877 was very simple. It consisted chiefly in the inhalation of sulphr-ous acid gas, generated by burning powdered sulphur on a plate or a brick. This was then placed near the patient’s face, so that the fumes could be inhaled by the lungs. The extreme tolerance of the effects of this gas shown by cholera patients, was very noticeable. Although fanned into their nostrls, it did not appear to produce any irritating effect, whilst I myself could scarcely enter the ward without being seized with a violent paroxysm of coughing and sneezing. On a person being admitted with cholera, the plate or brick on which the sulphur was laid was placed closed to his face, and the snlphur, which was frequently mixed with a small quantity of finely powdered nitrate of potash in order to aid its combustion, was then ignited and applied until amelioration of the symptoms was observed, and the urgency of the case considered past. After this it wn applied by the medical attendant when again considered necessary. The adjuncts to the inhalation of the gas consist in the drinking after each disturbance of the bowels of half a dram of water or peppermint water, of the drinking of as much cold water or iced water as the patient chose to take, and of fiictions over the body."