Peking, Jan. 9.
We have had -three distinct and diferent kinds of thrills here during] the last week, In. the first place there was the excitement caused by the American note to Japan, which ved with acclamation by. Ai the local, newspapers featured it in flaming headlines Gf" eblealze "character and particularly the apparently entirely Snfounded rumour that the, U.S. 'Asiatic fleet had received orders to proceed "to. Manchuria. But the Exeitentent has died down, 28 quickly it arose, and the note appears already to have sunk into complete oblivion, 'Then, on Wednesday hada typical Peking' shows the state of nerves everybody. is in thexe days: Shortly before ten, Pom, martial Jaw was quite suddenly. declared, the inner gates of the which usually remain open all were closed, squads of armed police
all' passers-by were held up' and appeared in all the main streets, and yrehed, No official explanation given for this sudden punic, nor it referred to at all in' the ese newspapers. But the reason given by the general public was, that the Japanese garrison here have been holding a lot of military exercises recently on the glacis outside the Legation quarter, even staging night exercises and' other realistic stunts.
Those exercises can scarcely be called tactful atthe present time When everybody's nerves are on edge and would rather seem to. partake of the gesture called trailing one's "Anyhow, the Chinese author-ties are said to have believed that the Japanese were meditation another coup & la Mukden, and toop "precautionary measures' accord ingly. No Chinese troops were aniled out, but the large number of armed police, so says the Chinese public, wore sufficient to intimidate the Japanese and nip the project in the bud.
Finally, at the end of the week, great excitement has been caused bya definite yumour that the Nanking government had declared 'a moratorium on all Domestic loans. Chinere banking circles here, how= ever, pooh-poohed the rumcur,'point= ing out that by such a step the state of the government would be worse than ever, They believe that the threat way at most only in the nature of a bargaining counter and that the government will in the end probably succeed in raising $25,000, 00'or so in Shanghai, but that this would be nothing like enough to solve it difficulties, and that the financial question would still remain the most pressing Outside the wall all seems confusion, A lot of confused fighting seems to be taking place. The most ited reports. of Chinese "are spread about, and the papers read just as if a Great War Was going on in which Chinese armies were putting up a heroic resistance, Japanese are now said to be advancing on Jehol. This emphatically denied in' Japanese military" circles which point out quite frankly that they have already enough on their hands putting down banditry in the vicinity of the railway. 'The report may be due to the fact that the Japanese have occupied the branch railway from, Chaoyang which place, however, is over 150 miles from' Jehol itself. At the present moment. through traffic between here and Mukden is completely interrupted again, though the British engineers of the P.M.R. are attempting to come to some arrangement with the Japanese. The remnants of the Manchurian governnent which had. yethered at An-chow have. now been dissolved, so that the de fueto. government' of Manchuria has for the time being ceased to exist.
In internal offal up Here everything is still waiting on events at, Nanking; but with the melting away of the nal Government. there the local authorities are more and more forced to rely on themselves, [si in "the "all-important The present obscure and confused polities! situation is no doubt an excellent opportunity for fishing in muddy waters. This perhaps counts for what seems a, veritable Yenaissance of former warlords who were supposed to have gone under in the fortunes of war. After Marshal Feng's spectacular trip to the South, we now have Blarshat, Peistu approaching the edge of Me limelight, The Chinese of the [North have always retained a quite affection for this "Napoleon as he used to be styled]
palmy days. And whenever! there has been some excitement up Move, we have always been treated to a' detailed rumour, of how Wu Peifu was marching from Szechuen Jor Kansu with a large army. Thi time the ru mour seems to have Jsome grains of truth in it, although his army only consists of a few hundred of his old body-guard and Jalthough he has so far only reac! Ninghsia. But the Young Marshal in a recent public interview to the Press stated that he was sending a representative to see Marshal Wu Jand to invite him to come to Peking.
jut for what purpose, he omitted to mndexactly what Wa can do without men or money, it is difficult see, Te is true that he was always} considered an inveterate enemy o!
indeed down ful attributed to the machinaons of the Japanese—and the man who was to drive the Japanese out of Manchuria. But things are rather'
nowadays, and the troops that he would find in the North now fare greatly inf to the comatively well-trained armies which he once commanded.
Chang Chung-chang.
gand and former 'Tuchun [Shangiung who Was one of Chang ITso-lin's. most redoubtable generals has. been living in retirement. her im Peking for many months and taking no part in. polities. Now suddenly, quite recently, he has burst forth into violent' political activity. His house is besieged every day by the usual crowd. of office-seekers, and he has. given two large and lively public dinners, one his Japanese and one to' his French friends, I way even told the number of bottles of champagne with which his guests were regaled incredible number which it ix perhaps more discreet to withhd Eversbody' is speculating as to what in vulgar parlance, ho is after, and behind their hand people whisper to you that he is hoping for the succession to the Young Marshal Perhaps he is, for he was ever an. Jontimist_and'a, gambler. Yet it
pious Wishes he would be allowed to searcey likely that with such Jeary on his activities so undisturbed." On the other hand: Do ex-'Tuchuns' provide. their foreign friends with ted champagne without expecting some quid pro! quo? Altogether, his sudden coming (o-lite of x0 many former war-lords bodes ill for the peace of China and or a rapid solution of her internal problems. least, greatly complicate the everlasting problem of Chinese politi hhow to find enough Jobs to go. rouns and ix likely to add still further the difficulties of forming a stable
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.