Dislocation of valuable. time was nearly fatal yesterday when that usually impeccable chronic der of the sly slow hours, the Customs Clock, stopped at 140 pin. That disturbed a few after-tiffin engagements and perhaps no great harm would have been done if for some unexplained reason the hands had not suddenly started their career again and then, having covered another sixty-five minutes of the course, given up the ghost at a fallacious 245 pin. At 550 pin. the Customs Clock still was lying in its teeth with 245 p.m. peering through the grey twilight. Happily, illumination has not governed its night work lately, so the shades of evening covered its delinquency and hid its shame from Shanghai, Whether in the watches which followed its attendants discovered and corrected the lapse, Shanghai will know when it passes down the Bund this morning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.