At 9.30 last night the order came from the Chief of Police that the ity gates must' be closed at ole, Since September all the gates, except the Hsu Men and Chang Men, have been closed at 7 pam. The Hsu Men has of late closed 9 p.m, and the Chang Men at 10 p.m, Last night hundreds of people wer caught inside the city, who wanted to get out, and hundreds outside, who wanted to g: t in. All the Soochow children from. the that American School were ing for the Christmas holidays on the 730 train, and it required several telephone calls'to the Chief of Police to get the city gates open. Tt was reported that looting wa feared; but neither the people side, nor the people outside, the city' seemed nervous. Talking' this morning with a man, who is in the government service, and who knows the "inside" of things political, he remarked that the attempted scare last night, was all bluff: to frighten the wealthy class and the business men, in order to obtain "contributions" for "military purposes." He went on to say that there could be no more fighting, in this section at Toast, because the "war chests of the [war lords" are absolutely empty.
Some troops are being moved to Nanking by rail to-day, and there {is also some shifting of troops by water, many native house boats have been commandeered for this service, and also some of the Inunches are dreading the same fate every hour. The boat people and the Iaunch companies live in hourly dread of being commandeered; and one does not wonder at their dread. The launches did not suffer during the war as much as the house boats and the cargo boa Many of these house boats wei returned to their owners as battor~ ed hulls, the cabins having been fused as firewood by the soldi Scores of boats were lost, and were never returned to thelt owners, who depended on these boats as their only means of support. It is no wonder that the people will pay almost any amount of squeeze to escape from the clutches of one—yes. What kind of rulers?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.