We reached the "Fair View" teahouse at noon only to find it dismantled and a crop sown on the We sat and had some refreshment near by and learnt that the place was the scene of a maniacal tragedy not very long ago. It seems that the place was establish ed by two women who were so successful in business that they incurred the jealous anger of their nearest neighbour. He offered to buy and they refused to sell the property to him. Negotiations were opened to dispose of the business to friends they said. A day was decided upon for the pow-wow. In the midst of the bargaining, behold the infuriated rival appear. After killing the four assembled, he rai away and disposed of his own The hills on either hand above the tree line are brown, there is no green there: but the woods show little sign of decay. For the most part this is due to the firs, but the under brush is mainly evergreen and, where the underbrush is not so, the leaves, variegated as_ they are with the warmth of autumn. have not lost their foliage altoge ther, Those flaming reds- the low tree, the shumac, and the, New Year's Lucky Cake.
Japanese life for the past few days seems to centre in the preparation of machi—the New Year cake. Hue eauldions outside in the street, brought evidently by a peri-eric gang of workers, heat the rice in square trays for the strap: ping coolies who pound it with huge mallets into a pliable resilient mass in a granite mortar.—This ig the food, or ought we to say delieaey, that is to bring good luck for the ensuing year. The Western calendar is observed more particu: larly in the towns than in the re-soter villages. Many of the country ilk even set prefer to celebrate the beginning of things according to th Chinese reckoning.
Hone it is that you may easily avoid the hooligan when mafficks, by moving a few miles away from a big town.
The foreign community are losing some of their number for the war and those that remain organize themselves ax workers for Relief Funds.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.