Suchien, Ku, Sept, 22, Suchien has been congratulating itself On being out of the: war zone, but who knows ' for how long!' We hear the Shantung soldiers are on their way down, ostensibly to assist Sun Chuanfang, but report whispers they means to-go over and fight him. As many of the Haichow soldiers have already left for the North, the country is again being disturbed the tufei. Some two or three weeks ago our Suchien soldiers went out to fight the tufei who are more or less always with us, About 30 soldiers were killed and a band of supposedly "White Flag" men offered to assist the soldiers.
This society has done good work against the tufei; and in all good faith the soldiers believed them and accepted their assistance. A. hundred and more were led into a trap, and fell into the' hands of the tufei.
Enlisting has been going on very briskly, and many stupid school boys gave in their names. Some after a great deal of trouble were given' back to their distracted parents, If they were of age they had to have some one to fill their place. To-day a man was on the street—probably enlisted somewhere—with one ear cut off, and his left hand hanging down with the muscles all ject across at the wrist. The hand will be crippled for life. His story was, though I don't pretend to vouch' for the truth of it, that he enlisted, and then ran away. He was caught and this was the punishment meted out to him.
The dollar now is worth 3,200 cash. Wheat is selling at 2,500 cash and very little grain is' at present on the market. Much ground has been drowned by the floods, and evidently people are holding their grain, hoping to get a higher price later o1 The new Chinese church has been opened this week, a beautiful building with three sides of gallery, and able to seat about 1,000 person It-has very pretty coloured—glass windows and square towers with flat roofs, and quite a handsome double storey bell tower. We are thaving very warm weather, and the last two days heavy rains,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.