21 JANUARY 1888, Page 3

A telegram from Shanghai tells a story which strongly con-

firms the accounts received last week of the destruction caused by the Yellow River. A body of four thousand labourers, under some mandarins, were repairing one of the dykes, when it burst, and all but a very few of the men were drowned. The incident, which in Europe would be considered awful, and in China is nothing, shows most strikingly the impossibility of escape when a high-level river bursts its embankments. These men must all have been prepared and watching, yet they all perished.