From all accounts T gather tht robber bands in various parts of the province are now toa largo extent suppressed. On most of the maim any rate travelling 1 more safe and the same is true of many of the smaller roads. This ix no doubt due very largely to the fact that Gen, Chow deals very sternly with robbers. Even for petty thieving in this.city men have boon shot, and for robberies, the more usual practice seems to be beheading.
For some days we have not received mails from down river; there are reports here that the Cantonese and their allies have been defeated at Hankow.
Parcel post is very expensive to this province, costing six times the usual rates and Iam assured that even 50 the post office is out of [pocket 'As one compares transport costs say 20 years ayo, it seem extraordinary that there' should be such a great difference, One big firm told me that for foods costing $200 transport charge from Shanghai is about $150; in addition are the many taxes and posts all along the way. The wonder is ton. finer ease in the roll of students, and Canton is the only one where are still any difficulties. Personally, I do not know a single outstanding Chinsee Christian who takes a Gepressed view of the future of Christianity in China, or a mis-ary who is not ful] of hope for the future."
We have also received extracts from the July report of the Senate of the West China Union University, Chengtu, Szechuan, The province is the one from' which the Foreign Office hag suggested that foreign women and children should be withdrawn. The University is a }co-operative institution eupporied by the Quakers, the Church Missionary. Society, Canadian Methodists and American bodies.
Dr, Joseph Beech, president of the University, writes: "At our graduation exercises' the chief speaker, the president of the Chengtu Government University and National Normal College, was unable to be present as he was practically Kept a prisoner in his own institution by rebellious students. His place was taken by a leading scholar, Marshal Coo, one of the chief men in the city, and a representative of the Bureau of Education.
The Military Governor sent his staff officer to represent him.... That the propaganda against Christian schools thas not been very effective outside the large centres of population is evidenced by the fact that the Educational Union for West China reports 20,419 students of all chi, Japan, in memory of St. Franci Xavier, the pioneer of foreign, Christian missionaries in Japan, was unveiled last Saturday morning in the presence of a Papal legate, delegates of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and a large number of grades enrolled in of 1926 as against 19,672 in the spring of 10924.
Mr. Lewis 8, Gannett, of the New 'York "Nation", who has just been travelling in China, in an article a week or two ago in his paper en titled, "I never liked missionaries,' concluded: "The red-hot days. of 1925, following the shootings of May and June, taught the missionaries things about themselves that they had never known, forced movements that had long been in germination to bloom early. New buds appea upon the branches which the gardeners at home had never suspected were there, Every ant foreign outbreak seems to work changes in the missionary garden. 'Rice Christians' who join the churches for what they can get out of it drop away; the missionaries learn in blinding ashes what of their work have sunk into nese hearts, and what have not. Some of them suddenly realize: btw far they have moved since they late. home, how much more they card' fox China than.for any: form of ereed",
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.