Our seventh governor to fold his! tent and silently: steal away, left us at 3 aa, this morning, after the briefest tenure of office, and the best promise of becoming the sort of governor we need of the whole seven.
The cause of Tang's retreat was the situation at Packing, the central city of Hunan, Away in. the pockets that exist in such border localities ug Hungkiang, Yuanchow, Shenehow and all west of Changteh s-places difficult of access, easy for purposes of guerilla strife, were gathered sundry groups of Hunan Bandit troops who have had rough it for one, two or even four for five years over the border line of Szechuan or Kueichow. Some of them really have more of enmity against both Ye Kai-hsing' and Ho Yo-chow than against Tang. Sheng-chih—But all of whom are "again the government," came down on Paokingtu and outnumbered the Paoking defenders by four or five to cer, Under such conditiong Chinese defenders prefer retreat to defence. With Paoking in the, enemy's hands, the road from Changsha to Hengchow, Tang's inevitable line of refront from Chang. sha, might be cut in a score of places as it passes through Heng-' shan, Actual fighting of a fairly severe nature hag been taking place between Pingkiarg and Milo, the first news of which in the local (Chinese) ross was the announcement that: Pingkiang had been retaken. The "taking" was not the sort of news that editors can publish in a realm with "such "sovereign right "lordly power" as the Chinese phvuse more appropriately runs, in Hunan or anywhere else in China.
An Bficlent Retreat Tang's plas on hearing of the fall of Packing wre made at once, and carried "out with malterly: ficiency. Al Thursday night, all day Friday, all last night up to 3 am, this morning the troops were drawn back from the. battle front and, captain-like, Range was amongst the' last to leave the sinking ship.
'The inferiority in military strategy of the Yo Kai-hsing forces 4s shown by the fact that although the way has been quite open to them all day, nat one of his soldiers has put in' an appearance. The peace of the city has been unbroken guarded by about 100 semi-soldiers (probably all of them old soldiers) in the employ of the: Chamber of Commerce; the police and a by no means large force of some sort of militia, And everything has gone on to-day much as it did yesterday—except that probably the Chinese accommodation on board the B, & S. steamer which Jeayes the port to-morrow morning. will be much more crowded that. usual. She reports being fired on between Yochow and Siangyin on hor way up. She is even more likely to be fired on her way down.
Also, the Labour Student "Proces-Bion has been postponed. The gang' who organize such are finding it, wise to go away from such an, unhealthy spot as Changsha for a change of ai
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.