An Interesting Proclamation:
The Whereabouts of the Missing Governor From Our Own Correspondent.
Changsha, Sept. 4-
A month ago I was walking and viding about the streets of Peking without being able to notice any indications that there was no proper governing authority in existence.. To-day, I hava been doing just the same thing in Changsha. Women and children as well as men are moving about in the most usual manner. Anew proclamation being stuck on a wall attracts unusual attention. Now and again, the sound of a bugle brings an unusual number of lookers-on to shop-fronts or doorways to see who the new arrivals are. Twa or three of the leading gold and silver smiths keep their doors closed, and the leading silk shops have hardly a twentieth of their usual display on the scores of shelves round the roomy buildings they occupy. But women and children are as numerous as usual; ricshas, as plentiful and as easy to call if it is fine and as difficult, if a shower comes on as in normal times.
Yet one of che most prominent proclamations announces that after careful inquiries in Changsha, Siangtan, Changteh and Yochow, no news of the missing Governor is obtainable. This proclamation is really a telegram which has been sent out by Gen. Lou Ti-ping, of the 2nd Division, to all and sundry, announcing that in answer to the request of Gen, Ye Kai-hsing, he has left Siangsiang and has taken charge of things at Siangtan. Amongst the addresses to which the telegram is sent is Leiyang with a request to deliver it to Tan Wei-kung"'—apparently a new "designation" of Y.. Tan, This fact has caused quite an amount of talk about this announcement, and rumour has forthwith accredited Gen. Lou with aspiring to the ycommandership of the province—a very "gratuitous assumption. One of the newspapers this morning followed up this proclamation with a series of surmises that were current as to the. whereabouts of the Governor. One rumour has it that a "certain" church has received $30,000 to hide him.
Col, Chu's proclamations refer to Y. K. Tan quite plainly as "tthe Commander-in-Chief" and "'the Provincial Governor." No other man is at all likely to be substituted for either of those offices inthe immediate future.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.