Nantao's fires, which have raged for two weeks, were last night burning from the Chinese Bund to the "West Gate district and apparently spreading further back into the "City" with nothing to stop their progress Besides a half dozen large blazes, ihe chief of which seemed to be burning almost in the very centre of the former walled city, smaller fires could be seen over a wider front than ever before during the merciless destruction of the district. Oddly, flames were leaping among buildings already destroyed, lighting weirdly the ruins of earlier conflagrations. It seemed as if the fire demon was seeking out the places he had somehow neglected during his visits at the middle of the month.
The damage wrought by th cession of fires can hardly be esi ed. Of about 40,000 dwelling-houses and shops in the formerly prosperous districts, only slightly more than 2,000 were believed in Chinese circles yesterday to have survived the conflagrations, Considered together, the fires so far have swept from Fong Ling Chiao, off Route Ghisi, to Zia Zee oad, Zia Tu Road, Chu Meng Road, Sa Lai, Kiaochangmiao to South Railway Station, and again from Huchunying to Loh Ka Pang, Ta Shing Ka, Huang Kia Chu Road, Small West Gate, Small South Gate, Tungkadoo, Wang's Wh Great Wharf, Siao Ka Road, San Pa Lou and zo Pa Lou areas No estimate was available last night as to how many schools, public buildings and industrial plants had been razed. It was reported, however, that the Chinese Tramway Ca, the French Waterworks, Kiaousin Dock, the Tungkadoo Church of St. Franci. Xavier and two educational institu tions established by foreign missionaries remained intact
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.