Air raids continue here as usual and still are confined to the railway although the advice to foreign vessels to clear off the Pearl River is believed to be a temporary measure, No ships will sail from Canton to Hongkong to-day. The passages through the boom at Second Bar and Bocca Tigris are now closed as a precaution against Japanese naval invasion following the attempts of destroyer No. 21 and 29 to rush the Bocca Tigris forts on February 1. The two destroyers utilized an oil tanker as a screen to pass the forts, which opened fire on the Japanese warships, which thereupon steamed out to sea.
The attempt of the two destroyers to rush through the delta was to test the strength of the shore batteries and may be the forerunner of a stronger naval attack. The Canton-Kowloon Railway and the highway can still be of service but they are subject to daily aerial attacks of Japanese planes. The Hongkong-Canton express train service three limes a day has been reduced to one owing to the frequent air raids on the line.
Japanese designs on South China are resorted also through political means. Messrs. Chen Chung-fu and Li Sze-hao, pro-Japanese politicians, are reported to have secretly arrived in Hongkong from Japan for the purpose of winning over malcontents in South China to set up a so-called autonomous regime in Kwangtung. Mr. Chen, of Chekiang, is an expert on conditions in South China, as he was a member of the former Southwest Political Council and came south at the invitation of the late Mr. Hu Han-min. Mr. Li is an obscure figure in South China. The people in Kwangtung and South China are loyal to the Central authorities, while the daily death and destruction by Japanese planes which bombed Kwangtung two or three times a day have aroused the deep animosity against Japan and have made it impossible for puppet politicians to gain any headway at all.
Japanese bombers showered leaflets urging the people to support a new leader, referring apparently either to Mr. Chen or Mr. Li, but angered by the massacre of the bombers, villagers fore up such handbills as soon as they were dropped from Japanese planes. sections; no bombs have fallen the central part or business section of the city, though the railway sections have been bombed over 20 times during the -past five months, the last severe bombing is a fair sample. On January 10, six planes dropped 50 bombs; killed four and twelve were wounded. while 100 houses were demolished. No railway property was hit, not a track nor a car. Certainly no military damage was done, There are now in this city three or four Catholic fathers from Canada and four American missionaries, Dr. McFadyen, Mrs. Grier and Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Your last paper was date December 22. We One bride received a lesson recently which may make her punctual for the rest of her life! It happened in Jersey, where the bridegroom, relatives and guests waited in St. Mary's end St. Peters Roman Catholic Church for a wedding which had been fixed for 2.30 p.m. The bride, however, did not reach the church until three o'clock. She was escorted to the altar, but, the legal hour having passed, the Registrar forbade the ceremony and it had to be postponed until the following day. In the confusion the bride's mother fainted. reach Shanghai by wire by telegraphing the American Consulate in Hankow who use wird The American Consular authorities recently. received assurances direct from Tokyo through the American Ambassador there that Japanese military and naval authorities have agreed to respect such American property at Hsuchow as is marked with white flags with blue cross in Glasses to suit all pockets.
Let us quote you. the centre. This was in answer to a request from us conveyed by special messenger to Hank:
The United States Consulate in Hankow secured the reply from Tokyo in four days time by wireless.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.