It is distinctly surprising that the melody "Over There" should still retain its popularity in China as a funeral dirge. Over three years must have passed since America first went one-stepping to its music, and naturally a catchy tune like that would quickly appeal to a Chinese band supplied with foreign instruments. So from Canton to Shanghai and probably much further north, funerals went almost cheerfully to their destination to the strains of "Over There," alternating with "John Brown's Body." Both possessed a sort of suitability, for if we are not mistaken there are some sects who refuse to use the word "die" but talk of tha deceased as having " passed over. But a tune such as "Over There" is only a phase, and one might have anticipated that by this time musicians would have become tired of grinding it out and! mourners equally weary of listening to it. Or is it going to become a _permanency, as much a national song as "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" is to the boatmen of Aden? The gods forbid!
Toxo, April 3.—A party of Chinese journalists from South China, 16 in number, this morning arrived at Tokio Station, where they were welcomed by a number of influential people, and immediately afterwards, went to tte {mperial Hotel—Eastern News Agency, Russian Bolshevik newspapers state that all trade in the provinces of Samara and Simbirsk has been concentrated in the hands of a German association called the Colonists' League, which was formed in April, 1920, with a membership of 3,500 German ex-prisoners and German farmers who are Russian subjects.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.