124 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [August i, 1887. 
and is therefore, very much in the minority. That 
there have been cases of cruelty and ill-treatment I admit> 
but the victims are always idle, vicious or mutinous, 
and it is only in rare instances that cases of ill-treatment 
have occurred, and the prepetrators of the cruelties 
have always been geverely punished by the Government. 
Then again, the punishment has been exaggerated, 
as it has seldom exceeded a simple thrashing, and is 
often only a single stroke of a cane, certainly on no more 
than almost every public schoolboy has experienced. 
The class of men who are assistants in the plant- 
ations are not to be compared to Negroes ; they are cer- 
tainly not a class who would be guilty of wanton cruelty 
to say nothing that they are themselves hard worked, 
and often enter into the coolies' troubles an. i difficulties 
with his crop, and by their superior knowledge are 
enabled to give the coolie valuable advice and assist- 
ance at critical times, and are often thus the means 
of increasing the man's average when the valuation 
takes place. It is astonishing the amount of virtuous 
iudignation some people give vent to on the coolie 
question ; but it generally happens that the outcry is 
greatest amongst persons possessing the least knowledge 
of the subject considered. Since leaving Sumatra, I 
have heard the coolie labour there referred to in the 
most prosperous terms, and stories related which it 
simply would be impossible could have occurred. I 
have learned, however, that the Magistrates who sit 
at the Hongkong Police Court are occasionally occupied 
with assaults by Europeans or natives, these mostly 
taking the forms of masters beating their servauts, 
and I understand there are many European employers 
of native labour who, though they would raise their 
hands in pious horror at the relation of ridiculous 
stories of so-called cruelties on coolies in the countries 
where the latter flock for the sake of profitable labour, 
do not hesitate to cut their servant's small wages for 
the mishap of breaking a glass or a plate, or some 
similar petty offence against the pocket or pride of 
the magnanimous white malgre that this may mean 
so many bowls of rice less to the cook or the chair 
coolies' children, as the case may be, duriug the month. 
In a walk through the town, one day I came upon a 
public institution still standing in this city, as a 
monument of the majesty of the law and the human- 
itarian principles of British rule over subject races. 
From its appearance, it did not seem to have been 
very long out of use, and I wondered as I looked 
upon it how many poor wretches had had the 
blood drawn upon it from their quivering and blackened 
back for far less than a Deli plantation coolie has had 
a couple of stripes from a small rattan ? It is a 
cheerful sign of the times that a Governor can come 
down from his high pedestal, as Her Britaunic Majes- 
ty's representative, and succour a subject race (for 
such the Chinese must ever be considered iu Houg- 
kong so long as it remains a British colony) who had 
previously been subject to the barbarous punishments 
of flogging and branding. When I first heard of the 
latter punishment, and the offences for which it had 
been inflicted, I felt rather ashamed of my country, 
in fact I protested to my informant that there must 
or I would not believe that an English Government 
official would consent in these enlightened days that 
a man should be branded under the circumstances that 
may have been in this colony. There have been crimes 
committed by coolies on the Deli plantations, equal to 
anything that ever took place in this island, I believe, 
but no such fiendish punishment as the pressing 
of a red-hot iron, spluttering and hissing, into a man's 
living flesh, was ever adopted to punish wrongdoers 
or to deter others. However the branding-iron and the 
whippiug-post are implements of the pist, aodt'msi 
who favor their use may resign themselves to the hew 
order of thiugs. 
There is a strong party iu England, in fact the 
strongest party in Kngland, inasmuch as it includes 
al. the forernos' men of th j conn I ry, whu will hav : 
id more of that sort of thing in any of Her Majesty's 
dominions, and it is a pity that a Governor, a follower 
of that faith, did not many years ago tiud his way 
to this colony to put a Wop to tl:e barbarities tha . 
have only in recent years ceased to obtain. In con- 
elusion, I must not omit to give what is due to the 
officials of the Dutch Government in Deli, and that 
is that under no circumstances whatever do they gloss 
over or fail to sift to the bottom any cases of alleged 
cruelty to which their attention is drawn; and further, 
that they do not wait for the cases to creep up 
under the official nose, but given that a planter ill- 
uses a hired servant, contract coolie, or whatever other 
position the victim may be in, justice overtakes the 
wrong-doer and with swiftness and surety. 
THE CHINA TEA. TEADE. 
A consular report oo the commercial condition of 
Foochow contains a review of the Chinese tea season, 
1886-87, from the pen of a resident British merchant 
largely interested in the trade. We glean a few inter- 
esting particulars. The favourable season of 1885-86 
made cash plentiful and cheap at the beginning of the 
year under review, money was sent upcountry in large 
amount for the purchase of the new crop, and the keen- 
ness of competition thus brought about caused prices 
iu the tea districts to rise from 5 to 10 per cent. The 
final result was, however, somewhat disastrous, for, 
though the crop was a fair average one, it proved not 
to be liked at home except as regards tha leaf from a 
few districts, and moreover, some of the teas had been 
picked too young, making the liquor very thin. The 
sales in London thus proved unprofitable, and some tea 
showed from 20 to 30 per ceul loss. One furth r feature 
ot interest has been the great difficulty in selling inLondon 
the finest qualities, many of the crack crops being still 
unsold, entailing heavy loss to the importers. The 
demand has been for teas costing under Is per lb., 
the result of cheap Indian teas. It is also worth 
noting, as showing bow at last the eyes of the 
Chinese are beginning to open to the evils of adulter- 
ation, that at the beginning of the season a large 
quantity of the article expressively designated "lie tea " 
was offered for sale at Foochow, but was promptly 
seized and burned by the authorities. Proclamations 
were also issued warning the people of the conse- 
quences of continuing to make counterfeit tea and 
to place it on the market. Oue other point of inter- 
est is the great development in the manufacture of 
brick tea from uust aud broken leaf by Kussian 
merchants in China. Some of these firms at Hankow 
and Foochow are now employing steam machinery, 
and are putting forth every endeavour to make the 
bricks smaller in size and more attractive in appear- 
ance. The trade iu this article with Central Asia is 
said to be increasing most rapidly. Cannot our Ind- 
ian tea-growers extract a "tip" from these facts? 
— Tines of India. 
JOEEHAUT TEA COMPANY, LIMITED. 
Capital £ 100,000. Area under cultivation 4,425 
acres. Directors, Messrs. W. C. Fairley (chairman), 
H. Burkiuyouug, E. M. Stone, W. Saugster and W. 
Koberts, managing director. 
The following report was submitted to the members 
at the twenty-eighth ordinary general meeting, held 
on Monday last. 
The directors have the pleasure to inform the mem- 
bers of the Jurehaut Tea (Jompiny, Limited, that the 
gross profits realised by the crop of tea of 1886 have 
amounted to £26,528 5s 8d, being an increase of 
£1,203 16s lOd, over that of 1885 ; and they propose 
that the same shall be distributed as follows, viz. : — 
Commission to staff £3,316 0 0 
Directors' extra fees 400 0 0 
Income Tax 497 15 9 
Dividend at 18 percent ... 18,0>0 0 0 
Reserve Fund 4,314 9 11 
£26,523 5 8 
The quantity of tea manufactured amounted to 
l,lU5i63j lb. being an increase or 51,744 1j. over the 
crop of 1885, and the average price was Is 3-7ld per 
lb. or about £d per lb. below the average price of th 
previous year's crop. The proceeds amounted t 
ij75,057 19s 8d being an iucrease over 18ja of £2,0 j 
16s Od, Very low prices h-Av ■ prevailed for teas o 
