Sept. 16, Honan, with communications interrupted on all lines, is a long way from Shanghai, so it is virtually impossible to say whether one ought or ought not to believe Marshal Feng Yuhsiang when he says, as reported ina telegram on Wednesday, that -|he has been unable to discover the whereabouts of Mr.
Riley, the "Times" correspondent who disappeared from Chengchow nearly two months ago. Of one thing any person who has travelled in the interlor—and this includes all Chinese—can be reasonably certain, and that that Marshal Feng' cannot be ignorant of Mr. Riley's fate if he is still alive. A tall man, obviously a foreigner, and speaking no Chinese, could not possibly disappear, voluntarily or involjuntarily, without some. whisper of his movements or whereabouts reaching Chinese official ears, We know of persons who have tried it, persons equipped with a native's fluency in the language and with suitable complexion, wardrobe, knowledge of Chinese habits and the connivance of ants—and who have failed ignominiously.
Chinese curiosity exceeds the bounds of. all normal human interest in persons and things; in every Chinese village there are scores of people with nothing to do but satisfy that curiosity and watch for hours, with the minutest attention, the movements, gestures, and words of a stranger. It is, moreover, sumed that any person who attempts to shield himself from this inspection, which is not ment to be unfriendly, has something to hide, or is in some way abnormal." Many years ago an acute observer of Chinese habits remarked that the essence of greatness in this country is be looked at. The normal Chinese accepts the blank stite of the crowd ax compliment and basks in it; whence the natural assumption that the man who tries to avoid attention is guilty of something. and, will bear watching. The more a foreigner tries, therefore, to avoid tention the more he gets it; and if he be watched closely enough he will give himself away soon-jer or later. He will invite our sity and comment by walking the wrong way, sitting his saddle the wrong way, by cleanly habits for which the yokel has no regard, by laughing at something which the Chinese do not find funny, or. by being shocked where the Chinese laugh. These eccentricities are marked, remembered and are the subject of gossip for weeks or months. When a yamen runner starts looking for a foreigner, fore, gil these eccentricities ar remembered and collated and hia trail becomes as clear to the oficial hunter as though he had registered in every tea house on his path,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.