The losses to trade in Shantung must be immense. The stopping of export of peanuts, walnuts. dried eggs, cotton and grain, to mention only a few of the sources of income. gives some hint of the poverty being occasioned. The winter has been comparatively mild and sunny but a little rain is falling to-day and helping to lay the dust.
Roads are geeting in a bad state. Manure heaps line village streets as the cesspits have their contents moved out. The smell of spring is in the air, insects are beginning to get excited, the call of the semi-deified lard is making itself felt in the farmers bones, and war or no war. that call must be obeyed. Meanwhile many of the charming children of China have begun to peacefully fly their kites.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.