Those familiar with Haichow would certainly get a shock on entering the city from the East Gate to-day and would rub their eyes twice to be sure they were seeing straight, for the ancient drum-tower, Haichow's one piece of architecture worth the name, has come down.
Tt consisted of the usual arch spanning the main street, but on top of it was a tasty pagoda of several stories. It is this pagoda that has come down and only the arch remains, like the stump of Dagon.
For several months there has been a most deadly epidemic, possibly influenza in a decidedly malignant form and some one said that the drum tower was to blame. Tt was logical enough—there was the drum tower and there was the plague, so down it came. The fact that just_as the demolition is being completed the plague is waning is proof positive that the real cause was discovered.
Tt would certainly seem that, to destroy such an ancient and picturesque monument of the past, a great deal of argument would have been necessary and the highest authorities invoked, But no, nothing of the kind. The man who pointed out the source of the trouble is of no particular standing or learning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.