Peking, Aug. 15.
It is learned that General Yen! Hei-shan has twice wired to General Lu Hsing-pang, the rebel leader menacing Foochow, urging him to do his utmost to obtain the release of Miss E. Nettleton and Miss Harrison from the Communist bandits, who are believed to be} wandering near the territory under his control.
Some Shansi officials express the opinion that the finger sent to the Chinese pastor did not really belong to Miss Nettleton but that the bandits eat off the finger of some faapless Chinese and asserted that it was Miss Nettleton's in order to strike horror in the minds of for. feigners and induce the payment of the ransom. They point out that in view of the torturings and atrocities committed at Changsha and elsewhere, such barbarity would be regarded as a trivial act cly the Reds.
The truth or otherwise of such surmise is naturally unlikely to be Jascertained before the release of the captives.
While world-wide sympathy is the women missionary captives, Miss E. Nettleton Miss Harrison, the case of the] Rev. P. Laffan' and the Rev. Linebam, two Irish priests of St. Columban's Mission, appears. to Rave been almost forgotten, There) is no news of any likelihood their escape, though they have been prisoners twice as long as the others, namely, since April The two Catholic priests were taken captive when a band of] Communists, about 4,000 strong, captured Sientaochen, about 100) miles up the Han River, on the! morning of April 25.
Aug. 16, Government troops are being despatched in an attempt to release priests, Father P. Lafindian, of St.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.