I leit Mienchow the day before yesterday. I am now in the midst of the district where the recent fighting took place. There is plenty of interest happening on the road. I had detachments of the sth Division with me from Mienchow as far as Huanghsiicheng. I am bound to say I have seen little trace of recent fighting. There is a little church building on the mission premises Lokiang, where I spent my first night. f found the doors" bolted when I arrived; the reason being that these passing soldiers look in and impress the workmen to carry loads.
Yesterday morning a little soldier of 16 years old started talking to my chair bearers. I suddenly became interested. "Oh yes," he was saying, "the sth Division are in Chengtu and Hsiong Keh-wu broken up. Lu Chiao is coming through soon to take up his duties of Tuchun here," said he, waving his hand over the lovely country through which we were passing. "There was plenty of fighting. The country was covered with the 1st Division dead. We only lost about "Flow old are you, young man?" said 1.
"Sixteen, oh well, not quite 16."
"Have you killed anybody?"
"No," he said, and lowered his voice; the child in him shrinking from such a thought, at least I like to think so, poor child.
There were at least a score of boys much like him amongst the crowd which caught us up at the next stopping place. The hope of China! If only they were at school! China seems like the old woman who lived in a shoe; she has so many children she doesn't know what to do.
A Division Wirsovrt Menitions.
The facts of the fighting are that the Ist Division came very close to Mienchow, and had to retreat, I believe, through lack of ammunition, and some people say that Lu has been lucky, meaning that but for that fact he could not have had the success he has had.. Whether he really is going to Chengtu time will show.
At Huanghsiicheng I left the Chengtu road. There was a crowd of women sitting in the market as I left. It appears that men are afraid to come on the street so the women come instead, That is the way my coolies accounted for the unusual number of women and the scarcity of. men.
Rica axp Opium. noted several barrows with of rice. "How much a bushel is your rice?" "2,300 cash." This works out on the Huanghsiicheng exchange at about~°$1.20. The price I paid for rice last at Mienchow was $1.94. You in Shanghai of course would think it very cheap but with us it is very dear, and is due largely to the presence of 80 many soldiers in Mienchow. At Huanghsitcheng that is not felt so much, I heard a rumour that Mienchow is to be given up as a garrison. If that is so what will become of all the buildings put up recently by the soldiers! Doubtless the people would be glad to see them go: although that would give the brigands a chance.
T have three opium-smoking coolies. One of them, sadly re-minis cent, said, "Alas! these days opium is dear, 700 or 800 cash an ounce! I remember when it could be bought for less than a hundred. I didn't smoke it in those days Cotoxe, Edward M. House, who until last year was President Wilson's confidant, has joined the staff of the''Philadelphia Public Ledger," for which he is to act as special correspondent in Europe.
Mr. Chang Chien, the well-known industrialist of Tungchow, has sent a despatch to the Government urging that the disbandment of troops be put into operation immediately in all the provinces. He suggests that land reclamation and the cultivation of waste land in the three Manchurian Provinces would provide the means for their employment and they would thus be prevented from becoming brigands and robbers. He further suggests that a foreign loan be negotiated, the proceeds of which must be used for the purpose for which the worley is borrowed, and no loans should be made unless for industrial and reconstructive purposes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.