A trip beyond Garden Bridge en route to the Settlement limits confirms expectations of destruction based on the huge cloud of flame and smoke which has rested over that area for several days and nights in succession, Just over Garden Bridge into Hongkew and along Broadway are scores of closed and shuttered shops. But passing over Hongkew Creek, where barbed wire trestles block side streets, the destructive effects of the last few days begin to creep on the imagination, Acres and acres of Chinese houses and shops are masses of blackened ruins, some of. them still smouldering. ' Whole blocks of buildings from street to street have been reduced to piles of charred timber and-heaps of bricks with little standing /heyond skeleton frameworks while wires litter the road laying traps for the unwary. The ruins of Chapei after the 1932 trouble remain an indelible memory: the ruins of Yangtszepdo are for worse for the flame-scor: district shows signs of almost Yoleanic heat while everywhere there are Japanese sandbagged posts and defences indicating the severity of the Chinese attacks which resulted in deep penetrations into that area. authorities have replied to the effect that they will be glad to assist the Consuls in taking such steps as are practicable to mitigate the abuse of which complaints are made. It should be noted that this statement by the Japanese authorities applied exclusively to the Shanghai area, From inquiries made it appears that no knowledge of that statement was available in Nanking yesterday morning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.