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high officer in special charge is making a fortune out of it. . . . There are other absurd results of this rule-of-thumb system. Province A receives subsidies from province B, but itself, owing others to province C, pays B on behalf of C. Thus there are two freights to pay and two losses on exchange. Sometimes A may be directed even to pay a subsidy to a province B which already pays one to province A. Funds which might easily be sent by draft are usually despatched in hollowed-out logs of wood, with a guard of soldiers as escort, accompanied by carts, fighting "bullies," and a commissioned officer. Even when sent by draft, there is a charge of two or three per cent for remitting, and a commissioned officer is sent to carry the draft. It is pathetic to read the account of hundreds of coolies trotting all the way to Shanghai from Shansi with heavy logs of wood containing silver wherewith to repay the interest on European loans. The extraordinary care and punctuality exacted in matters of form, duty, or national honour are only equalled by the shameless peculation and callow waste of time and money which prevail in personal matters connected with the performance of the same public duty. Officers of high rank, who are known to make thirty thousand or forty thousand taels a year out of their posts, gravely work out their balances to the thousand-millionth part of an ounce, forgetting that (even if the clerk's salary were only sixpence a day) the time occupied in counting and subtracting each line of figures would cover, ten thousand times over, the clerk's salary rate per minute. In a word, the whole Chinese financial system is rotten to the core, childish and incompetent, and should be swept away root and branch. Until there is a fixed currency, an European accountancy in all departments, and a system of definite sufficient salaries, all reform is hopeless to look for.