Very little has been said in the public Press about the. condition of, affairs in 'Pientsin. native city but none the less is the situation in the North serious to' a degree. The ory of "wolf" is 30° often raised over iucipietit native dis-
The present ill-feeling in the North is of complex origin and it would be unwise to ascribe it to any predominant cause. 'I'ientsin has always had the re+ putation of possessing a turbulent pop+ ulation. Li's iron rule held its rowdies down for twenty years, and it is possi+ ble the residuam is now making téntative efforts to see how far it can go under the more placid Wang Wen-shao, Hints have not been wanting that the Li "following" look with equanimity on the prospect of seeing Wang in. a fix: such a contingency would be the speediest way of getting their old latron back.. This seems to us a far-fetched cause of the existing discontent: it would be far more rational to ascribe it to the dissatisfied sections of society which render Tientsin a Chinese Cave of Adullam for the moment. The local Fire Brigades are surfeited with men who find their finest chance of loot in a disturbance then there is a fair sprinkling of Mahommedans (say 20,000) in the city, and recent events in Kansu have not tended to make them more contented with
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