Changsha, Dec. 30.
The Standard Oil Company has an agency outside the East Gate, not far from the main railway station. On the military road which runs to Siangtlan are the barracks of the 8rd Battalion of the 1st Mixed Brigade, the crack troops of the citly, under Brigadier-General Ye Kai-hsing, who are in special charge of the city and especially of all matters concerned with martial law. A clash between the Chinese agent: of the foreign company and the soldiers of the Mixed Brigade furnishes a commentary on my reason for not bothering your readers with any account of the way in which Gen. Chao Hong-ti, the duly elected Civil Governor, entered his office. The election is all part of the new provincial constitution which provides for the liberty of all Hunanese and specially protects them from the evils of military rule. On paper, the scheme is excellent!; the following shows how it works in the flesh and blood of the Honan civilian, and, doubtless, how it would work with all and sundry Europeans and Americans were we subject to the excellent constitution.
Some of the soldiers were working in the neighbourhood of the oil store and for some reason or other wanted the use of the agent's barrows. The agent objected and got his barrows hack, but at the price of a knocking about of his store and the destruction of some of his, and also the Standard Oil Co's. property, though not much of the latter—~merely a, few tins of oil. It was enough, however, to give ground for complaint to the head office situated in the opposite suburb of the city. One of the American staff at the Consulate went along and not only was he able to see the damage, but one of the soldiers was still working in the vicinity. The vice-consul had him taken round to the consulate, where he was questioned and, as he had no badge, he was handed over to the military police. The sagacious men whose duty it is to guard the guardians of martial law, however, were not to be persuaded into taking a.soldier into custody merely because he was disobeying what no one doubts is a military law, to wit, that identification badges must be carried whenever a soldier leaves his barracks. The next move was to hand the soldier over to tthe care of the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs. There is no record concerning the length of time that the excellent scholar and courteous civilian who now fills the Foreign Office post retained. custody of the soldier.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.