The Impressions of a Newcomer:
Mr, F.B. Riley's Letters The death of Mr. P, B. Riley, the young Correspondent of "The Times" in China, was chronicled 30 far as the facts aire ever likely to be Known, Some account was also given of his crowded life us Rhodes Scholar, soldier, Civil servant, student in an American University, and' journalist in different parts of the-world. It is thought now that a ow typical extracts from the private letters which he wrote from China during this lest summer may also have' a: certain interest for a wider that to which they were At least they record the first impressions of a fresh mind, by no means untrained, upon a problem which is peculiarly clouded by fixed ideas.
The choice of Riley for a special emission-to China was not made at haphazard. "A boyhood passed on the shore of the Pacific had early aroused his interest in the race questions of the Far East, and this had grown with his years at Oxford, in contact with other Rhodes Scholars from different parts of the Empire, and with his wanderings during "the War. He went to Columbia University—after some temporary work for "The Times" in Iraq, where he finished his military service—very largely in order to study race questions further from the American point of view. was persuaded to rejoin the staff of "The Times" mainly by the hope that he might some day return to the Enst, When, after two year's work in the New York effec, the develop-mont of events in China made it necessary to strengthen the representation of the paper in China, he seemed the obvious man for the work, and he received the suggestion. with enthusiasm. Ho described it, ina grateful letter to the Editor, a8,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.