We do not know whether the Peking and Canton Governments receive daily casualty lists, euch as we were accustomed to seeing while the great war was in progress. Probably not, because in such an army as China possesses the Adjutant-General's Department could scarcely be expected to be so highly developed as to collate all the returns from different quarters. It is nevertheless a pity that we have no such lists, for then we could appreciate the better how much of Peking's wrath over General Chang Chin-yao's failure to hold Changsha is merited. Incidentally we have no doubt that every bit of it is, for all the mention of casualties. we have had comes to something like a score of men killed and some 350 wounded. This in approximately three weeks? so-called fighting, in which important cities have changed hands and equally important officers are reported to have fled so that they might keep their skins whole. No doubt there have been other casualties, but the absence of allusion to them is significant. Where one may look for the most damage to life and limb is probably among the defenceless civilian population. General Chang's hurried retreat without, so far as anybody can an important diminution in effectives through the wear tear of war. ought to convince Peking of the impotence of the Tuchun system. It will not, however. for there is a suspicion that too many of his kidney are there entrenched.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.