City trade will suffer if the war continues. Shops are already emptying of their stock, and because it is realised that all imported goods will be irreplaceable, prices are rising daily.
Not so rice and vegetables, and eggs, which cannot be exported as usual, and are therefore cheap: The general feeling is that there will always be plain food so long authorities arrange some s; currency or credit so that it will be purchasable. If this is done China will survive the coastal blockade, a blockade by the way which was here in force ever since local steamers stopped sailing at the commencement of the Shanghai hostilities.
The attitude to the war is simple enough whichever class of citizens is approached. "We don't want to fight. Anything for an easy life. But it is the only thing to do, even if we can't win; in either case our country will be stolen from us." In this frame of mind, dogged, or fatal-of likely to of cigarettes, beer, paraffin, medicines, matches and the like, nor even if, as is expected, their sons are conscripted to fight. In spite of the money shortage generous subscriptions are being made to the war treasury. Various defensive committees are being organized.
Stern measures have been taken against persons accused to be spies, two of whom were said to be attempting to poison the public wells.
The foreigners in the city, numbering over thirty, British, American, and Russian, have not evacuated, and are fully expecting to remain unless things take a decided turn for the worse,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.