CHINA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 224, 30 October 1878, Page 2

CHINA.

(Own Correspondent Tress Agency.) ! Hongkong, September 5. Since rpy last, criuie has increased here \ threefold. Three murder's have been comJ mitted amongst the Chinese. The latest one ! was by a European named Newman, who murdered a Portuguese and nearly killed a woman named Louisa Lockhirdt, a native of Sydney. Two of the Chinamen have been sentenced to death, but the Governor, who does not approve of capital punishment, has commuted th,e sentence to penal servitude for

life. If the other uieii, whose cases are more aggravated, and who have also been senceuced I to death,.are not hanged, there will be great dissatisfaction in the colony. There has been a robbery every night during the last six tteeka in some bojise or another. The Chief I Justice and the AttorneyrGeneral's houses 1 have been robbed.— On "the 27th ult., the j Lekin station at Chow lliug, about seventy miles from Canton, was attacked by a hundred robbers. A fight ensued for about nn hour, when the soldiers had to succumb. Two were killed, and several wounded The thieves carried off 4000 dollars belonging to the revenue. A reinforcemeufc of soldiers was sent there, but as yet no arrests have been made. The people from tlie distressed districts are still flocking to Canton. There are now hundreds of them there. Shanghai. The wrecked ship Harlow, with her cargo of liOti tons of Wolto'ngotig coalj was sold by auction for 65 taels. It is said the Chinese already stripped the wreck of everything they could get at.— Chang How, Governor of Xewhowang, has left on a mission to Russia; it is said with a view to make some arrangement with the Czar to prevent the continued encroachment of Russia into Manehuria.— Russia is carrying' out liter's will here just as surely as in Turkey, and when too late, it will be found that the ChineseGovermnenfc is well under control.— A few days ago, Mr Huffium, the official assignee, absconded from the. colony of Hongkong and went to Macao with 40,000 dollars. He has been apprehended, aud now awaits trial-— The Hong Kong Press says an expedition is to be fitted out soon, under Dr. Von der Horde, who says it is to traverse the whole Eastern Asiatic coast — the islands especially— up into the Polar sea, then crossing at Behrirg Straits, to follow down the western coast of America to Oregon. The objects of the expedition are scientific investigations, coast surveys, deep sea dredging, geological, Soological, and botanical researches, and above all, anthropological studies concerning the migration of races from Asia to America, and to see if the remains of an ancient migratory people canuofe be found in the isolated groups of islands of those wild regions. It is expected that th6 expedition -will last three or four years.— All the shipmasters are preparing for a typhoon. ,In the past three days the barometer has been rising quickly, and the heat is very oppressive —99 in the shade at 1 p.m., and 92 at night. The weather is about the same as it was just before the great typhoou of 1874.— The Hong Kong Huuuaue Society are out twice a week practising life sa ving with the rocket apparatus.