Peking, June 4.
Chang Chin-yao, the notorious ex-commander of the 7th Division, whom the American Government' holds responsible for the Reimert murder in Hunan in 1920, has taken the current reports of his connexion with the Lincheng bandits seriously enough to pub~ lish a- denial in the Tientsin' Chinese papers. It runs somewhat as follows:
"Tt is reported in almost all papers that the Lincheng bandits were a part of. Chang Chin-yao's former army, but much of this -is groundless rumour. About' three years ago this army was disbanded. At that time it con~ sisted of more than 50,000 men. A part was reorganized, but! some were sent to their homes. Since then I have had no infor-motion about their movements. The statements in the papers are deliberately designed to insult' me. Sooner or later both the foreign and Chinese captives will be released and it will then' be possible to learn clearly enough whether I have had any> thing to do with this affair or not.—Chang Chin-yao."
Visitors to Lincheng, official and otherwise, come back here with' fairly consistent stories of how General Yang Yi-teh and Admiral Wu Vu-lin deliberately muddled all negotiations after they found that they were not going to meet) with success during the short period of their visit. All well informed observers agree, however, in giving Mr. Roy Anderson and Mr. Wen Shih-chen full credit for dong virtually all of the really effective work. The only other negotiator mentioned in the same key is a Mr. Shih, a volunteer' from the Chiaotungpu, who is said to have given intelligent and valuable assistance. The Waichiaopu commission which was sent down with the avowed duty of investigating. the causes of the outrage in collaboration with the consular representatives, is unanimously voted a total loss.' The representatives have snot worked with the consuls and have scarcely left their car since their arrival at Isaochuang. A great many of the muddlers, who can find nothing better to do writd letters back to Peking in which they hint broadly that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Wen Shih-chen are really employed by the bandits.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.