Peking, Apr. 27.
The arrivals of General Chang Tso-lin at Chungliangchen and General Wu Pei-fu at Paotingfu and the continued movements of troops to the front appear to bring hostilities closer.
Patrol encounters are reported on the Peking-Hankow and Tientsin-Pukow lines but a general engagement is still probably some days, or, perhaps, a week, off.
Mediation, in which fresh groups are participating, continues, but up to the present there has been little prospect of success.
All classes of Chinese are now reconciled to the idea of the two factions settling their rivalries in the field, believing that a patched-up peace would only postpone the inevitable struggle.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.