At a time when everyone is tall ing of the possibil of renewed) warfare in the outskirts of Shang: hai, it is opportune to voice another appeal to Shanghai's able-bodied men to give more support to the'
V. OG. Tt ig unfortunately true that the proportion of young men who join the Corps on their arrival here is much smaller than was the ease even six years ago. We believe it is a fact that the strength of the Corps to-day is substantially Jess than it was twelve months ago. This is extremely unfortunate, for if the present situation were to develop og others have done, the $8. V. C. would find itself faced with fa similar task to that which it had to carry out in the late summer! and autumn of 1924. On that occasion the Settlement was completely surrounded with barbed wire and sand-bag barricades, held by 'Volunteers, naval men and police. Chinese were not allowed to cress the borders after dark, and those who did so in the day time wer very thoroughly searched. Few, people outside the members of the corps understood what an infinitely' wearisome task that was, and fewer' still realized that the strength of the corps was barely sufficient for the} work, Men were on duty at the barricades for twelve hours out of the twenty-four, and kept this up Continuously for' weeks on end, On the rare" occasions when they managed to get away from not too comfortable billets for a bath and change at home, they were in a state of physical weaxinces such as some of the younger men never had known, and such as the older had not experienesd since the days of the war. In 1924 big naval rein-foreements were available to assist. At the present time it stands t reason. that, with the delicacy the situation' up river, the navy cannot possibly afford the same support that it did two years ago, It is quite obvious, therefore, that it is nothing more than the simple duty of every able bovlied man who can be spared from his office to join up. The mona men who belong to the corps, the duties of those serving will be, and the greater the proportion of' men wie an, be given leave for office aiitieg, Really it is high time one of our local fishermen cajoled another bie ide, or anything else that may be there, out of the Hongkew Park ponds, for the' shooting men ars telling a story that beats any fish yarn. Snipe, it "appears, rival the Rowing Club's members in a partielity for Henli and at certain seasons flocks of them frequent th Possibly owing to local influences, with Kuominchun agai Kuomintang, Chang against Wo, another Chang against Feng, San against Wu, and Malwa against Majha, the' Henli snipe divided against themselves, Kuominchun snipe on one side of the bridge and Kuomintang snipe on the othe:. There were 800 on either side an. they fluttered about with as much noise as the rival human parties, and with no more achieved. Finally, they reached such a state of excite. [ment that the two flocks, moved by common impulse, dashed at each ther. Tt was bad for the snipe. ut good for the villagers, for 32] snipe' fell to. the ground suffering from concussion of the brain anc wore gathered up and subsequently disposed of in the way snipe commonly are. During an acquaintance extending over many years, the gentleman who narrated this story, has been found to be a very model of veracity, and he was careful to emphasize the fact that he did no-personally witness the battle of the snipe, but he. had heard of it from many who did see it and he was pre pared to vouch for their -truthfulness—or almost.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.