P. & 0,'S. China, Sold to Japanese Breakers With the hauling down of the British colours on board the China in Osaka at 9 a.m. on July 23, another P. & 0. steamer passes into the shipbreakers' hands, says the "Japan Chronicle."
The China, which was one of the best-known and most popular of the company's ships, was built by Messrs. Harland & Wolff, Ltd., of Belfast, and launched in July, 1896. She was one of a new class of which five in all were built, and way the only one built by the Belfast firm. Costing some £60,000 more than the others, she was reckoned the crack ship of the fleet when she was first put into service. She outlived her four sister ships by six years, the last being the ill-fated Egypt. The others—the India, Arabia, and Persia, all met disastrous but glorious ends during the Great War, while carrying out their duties as'armed merchantmen.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.