A very severe blow to the habits of the local Chinese population has just been struck by the Nantao authorities. They have issued an edict that, because individuals may at times be observed in a half-nude condition, the populace must no longer sleep out at nights. Of course Nantao has its own select code of the proprieties, but surely this is unnecessarily severe. Those of us who stay out at nights and, as if ashamed of our nocturnal habits take short cuts home in the wee hours, notice that our Chinese fellow residents, especially the small shopkeeping class, like to take their beds on to the side path and there, with a pair of perfectly good breeches kept up by a string tied round the middle, and a tunic thrown open to the four winds, they repose, blissfully. unconscious of the squabbles of ricsha men and the hooting of motor cars. Our police are sympathetic to this extent, that so long as people do not want to walk along these side-paths they see no reason to inter-fore with the perfectly natural desire of the residents to get away from their confined quarters and make a much needed return, to Nature. So for years we have got along nicely. Nantao, however, is apparently not artistic; its remarks on the subject of the seminude indicate that it would disapprove entirely of the tout - ensemble; and it has ordered these people indoors. Well, in all probability we should give Nantao credit- for knowing its own business best and for good intentions, but we should have thought that any relief from its crowded quarters would have been encouraged by the authorities. Happily, however, there is an understanding that certain Chinese regulations may always be honoured in the breach—or rather, perhaps, in the breeches.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.