“Yesterday the Pah-shien magistrate issued a proclamation, saying that he was going to raise a tax of 200 cash on each pig killed by the pork-butchers of this city, and the butchers were to reimburse themselves by adding 2 cash per pound to the price of pork.  The butchers, who had already refused to pay 100 cash per hog, under the late magistrate, were not likely to submit to the payment of 200 under this one, and so resolved not to kill pigs until the grievance was removed; and this morning a party of them went about the town and seized all the pork they saw exposed for sale.  Then the whole of the butchers, over five hundred at least, shut themselves up in their guild, where the magistrate tried to force an entry with two hundred or three hundred of his runners.  The butchers, however, refused to open the door, and the magistrate had to retire very much excited, threatening to bring them to terms.  People are inclined to think the magistrate acted wrongly in taking a large force with him, saying he ought to have gone alone.”

Three days later, October 13:—­

“There is great excitement throughout the city, and I am told that the troops are under arms.  I have heard several volleys of small arms being fired off, as if in platoon exercise.  All the shops are shut, people being afraid that the authorities may deal severely with the butchers, and that bad characters will profit by the excitement to rob and plunder the shops.”

Two days later, October 15:—­

“The pork-butchers are still holding out in their guild-house, and refuse to recommence business until the officials have promised that the tax on pigs will not be enforced now or hereafter.  The prefect has been going the rounds of the city calling on the good people of his prefecture to open their shops and transact business as usual, saying that the tax on pigs did not concern other people, but only the butchers.”

One day later, October 16:—­

“The Pah-shien magistrate has issued a proclamation apologising to the people generally, and to the butchers particularly, for his share of the work in trying to increase the obnoxious tax on pigs.  So the officials have all miserably failed in squeezing a cash out of the ’sovereign people’ of Ssuch’uan.”

I have a similar story from Hangchow, in Chehkiang, under date April 10, 1889, which begins as follows:—­

“The great city of Hangchow is extremely dry.  There are probably seven hundred thousand people here, but not a drop of tea can be bought in any of the public tea-houses.  There is a strike in tea.  The tea-houses are all closed by common agreement, to resist a tax, imposed in the beginning of the year, to raise money for the sufferers by famine.”

In the next communication from this correspondent, we read, “The strike of the keepers of tea-shops ended very quietly a few days after it began, by the officials agreeing to accept the sum of fifteen hundred dollars once for all, and release tea from taxation.”