CHINA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5487, 28 October 1878, Page 3

CHINA.

(OWK CORRESPONDENT PRESS AGENCY.) Hongkong, September 5. Since my last, crime has increased here threefold. Three murders have been committed 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 sen-' tenced to death, but the Governor, who does not approve of capital punishment, has commuted tho sentence to penal servitude for life. If the other men, whoso cases are more aggravated, and who have also been sentenced to death, are not hanged, there will be great dissatisfaction in the colony. There has been a robbery every night during fche last sis weeks in some house or another. The Chief Justice and the Attorney-Generals houses have been robbed. On the 27th ult., the Lekin station at Chow King, about seventy miles from Canton, was attacked by a hundred robbers. A fight ensued for about an hour, when the soldiers had to succumb. Two were killed, and several wounded. The thieves carried off 4000 dollars belonging to the revenue. A reinforcement of soldiers was sent there, but as yet no arrests have been made. The people from the distressed districts are still flocking to Canton. There are now hundreds of them there. A rumor is in circulation that his Excellency Li Hung Chiug, iu conjunction with the O.M.G.N. Company, has determined to connect Taku and Tientsin by railway, so as to avoid the tortuous and dangerous navigation of the Peiho river. Shanghai. The wrecked ship Harlow, with her cargo of HOC tons of Wollongong coal, 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 Newhowang, has left oa a mission to Russia ; ibis said with a view to make some arrangement with the Czar to prevent the continued encroachment of Russia into Manchuria. Russia is carrying out Peter’s will here just as surely as is Turkey, and when too late, it will be found that the Chinese Government is well under control. A few days ago, Mr. Huffum, the official asr signee, absconded from the colony of Hongkong and went to Macao with 40,000 dollars. He has been apprehended, and now awaits trial. The Hong Kong Press says an expedition is to be fitted out soon under Dr. Von der Horck, who says it is to traverse the whole Eastern Asiatic coast—the islands especially—up into the Polar sea, then crosaing-at Behring 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, zoological, and botanical researches, and above all, anthropological studies concerning the migration of races from Asia to America, and to seerif the remains of an ancient migratory people connot be found in the isolated groups of islands of those wild regions. It is expected that tho expedition willlasfc three or four years. All the ship-masters 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. Tho weatheris about the same as it was just before the great typhoon of 1874. The Hong Kong Humane Society are out twice a week practising life saving with the rocket apparatus.