Outside the city, the anxiety and general excitement is even greater than within and with very good reason. Not once has the writer Iheard the people express any fear of the approaching Southern Army. The danger, to their minds, lies in, the t'ao ping (running-away sol-" diers). 'These were passing along in an' ever increasing stream batches of fours and fives, during the night and early morning, to the encampment north of the city—bedraggled, tired, hungry and armed. [The grave danger is that as these come in in greater and greater numbers and as the retreat gradually develops into a rout, they will run amok and embark on a brief bat bloody career of looting and out. rage. At night the women and {young girls congregate in such places as they think afford the greatest protection, such as mission com-Pounds and the cotton mills. The entrances to all the alleyways along the streets were heavily barricaded, sigh of relief was breathed last night when the rain began to fall very heavily at about 9pm. The Jdyke has again been cut, allowing a large area south of the city to be flooded. A small amount of ma-gun fire' was heard south of the city Fast night but this quickity died down.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.