Peking, Aug. 2.
Peking is in the political doldrums. The members of the new Cabinet are amusing themselves checking off the—official payrolls the political dependents of the last incumbents. Apart from this they are just waiting watchfully. The Central Park is really the only place in town where one can hear @ good story. There the minor lights of the various ministries, the entire Chinese newspaper fraternity and the fashionable never-do-weels meet of an evening to trade gossip. Although Wu Pei-fu. has retired quietly to Honan, while absolutely nothing worth mentioning emanates from the residences of Tsao Kun and Chang Tso-lin, or from Mr. Obata's select lodging house, the great war between Wu Pei-fu and the tuchuns is fought out every evening between five o'clock and sunset in the tea-houses or on the banks of the lotus ponds of the Kung Yuan. The place is an excellent antidote for ennui.
If things political move too slowly for your taste you have only to enter the park and whisper in strict confidence to the first Chinese friend you meet that Wang Chen-pin has moved from Chengchow to Kaifengfu. You stroll through the gardens, look into the moat where the lottses grow, feed the deer and finally come round to teasing the one lonely leopard in his cramped cage and you meet another friend and learn that Wang Chen-pin, having moved from Chengchow to Kaifeng, has moved on to Hsuchowfu, has been reinforeed by hordes of Chang Hsun's former retainers and has either set himself up as Tuchun of Anhui or has driven Ma Liang out of Tsinanfu—and all in a quarter of an hour. It'is a diverting pastime, for there's nothing like having a finger in the making of history.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.