88 Mr. Davis's Extracts from the Peking Gazettes. 



length it becomes a very serious case. If the cause of this be sought, it will 

 be found to consist in " the neglect of an early inquest." Thus, in the 

 instance of the trial at TUsing Been* in Che-keang province, where the 

 woman Seu-ne-she was found to have strangled the woman Seu-tsae-she, had 

 the Che-H'een proceeded immediately to the inquest, the truth might have 

 been elicited at once, without the necessity of repeated trials. 



The object of this address is to intreat your Majesty to command the 

 viceroy and governor of every province to provide for a speedy inquest in 

 every case of homicide ; and if there is any attempt to delay or suppress 

 matters on the part of the magistrates, to recommend their immediate dis- 

 missal. Those magistrates will thus be put upon their guard for the future ; 

 bad practices will be restrained, and imprisonments on accusations of homi- 

 cide diminished in number. 



II. ScarcitJ/ of Grain in Fuh-keen province to be supplied from Che-keang, 



by Sea. 

 SuN-URH-CHUN (viceroy of Fiih-keen and Che-keang) has recommended a 

 temporary relaxation of the restrictions on the coasting trade, and the hold- 

 ing out of encouragement to merchants to import grain from Che-keang by 

 sea.t In the past year, the harvest of rice in Fiih-keen province has been so 

 bad as to raise the price of grain to an unusual height. The said viceroy 

 states that tiie harvest in Che-keang has been comparatively plentiful, and 

 the coasting navigation affords sucii facilities for transmission, that he 

 recommends some relaxation of the restrictions upon it, as an encouragement 

 to merchants to supply tlie wants of the people. Let this be done, according 

 to his recommendation, and let the treasurer of Fiih-keen hold out encou- 

 ragement to the merchants of Fiih-choxvfoot (the capital) and its dependen- 



* When the Gan-cha-sze, or judge, strangled himself in a fit of perplexity and despair. 



■\ It being the policy of the Chinese government to restrict the intercourse of one province 

 with another, as well as with the most distant parts of the empire, almost entirely to inland navi- 

 gation, a reference to the map will immediately shew that the mland trade between Ftih-K'een and 

 Che-Keat/g is impeded by lofty mountains, where the rivers take their source, and where con- 

 sequently they are unnavigable. The plenty of the one province, therefore, in such a bulky 

 commodity as grain, cannot easily supply the scarcity of the other, except by sea. 

 ■\. Recommended in Mr. Ball's pamphlet as the best seat of European trade. 



