Wang, chief police inspector of Nanking, as reported to-day from New York are a little too much of a good thing. He declares" that "the Chinese police authorities are more guccessfu! in checking the activities of opium bootleggers than the police of America in combating whisky bootleggers;" he denies the statement of an expert witness before the League of Nations "that opium growing, as well as the smuggling of opium, is; on the increase in China'; and he declares that while there is plenty} of opium in the sca-ports, "in the interior opium is scarce." There is one province, we believe, of which this might be said, Shansi, whose Governor not long ago state ed that nearly half his revenue went in keeping opium from being smuggled into his province. For the rest, Mr. Wang's assertions can only be described in a word of four ilotters. But even more amazing statements have yet to be! quoted. We read:—"We have had trouble with bandits in the interior and have had to ask help from the army, but now that we: have political peace, there is much less trouble," Mr. Wang said. "The for; eigners give us no trouble.""
The amazing thing is that no one it New York seems to have had the knowledge to get up and give the lic to this unequalled purveyor of the thing that is not. On the contrary we read that:—A trick of soundless speech, evolved by Chinese detectives to outwit criminal eavesdronpers, made such an impression'! when described by Mr. Wang at the; Conference that Police Commissioner Enright of this city immediately took steps to prepare a similar code for his department.
If Mr. Wang had practised the art of soundless speech before ho uttered -these outrageous lies, his tongue would run less risk of being blistered. But probably it is case-hardened.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.