Hankow, Jan, 81.
All Chinese Government. offices re-matricd open to-day despite the fact that it was Chinese New Year, a day observed throughout China for centuries as the year's biggest event.
The Sino-Japanese war, however, stripped the celebrations of their picturesque setting, the usual lantern parades, dragon dance and spectacular fireworks being conspicuously absent, New Year celebrations this year have been confined to private homes, Happily for the populace, there was no air-raid to-day, Following the hint by the Japanese naval spokesman at Shanghai that Japanese aircraft may bomb the residential and business districts in Hankow, and also because the Japanese have staged spectacular air-raids on Chinese national holidays, there was much talk last night that Hankow would probably be subjected to its first large-scale bombing to-day.
Weather conditions, probably more than anything else, prevented the Japanese from raiding Hankow today, An unusually heavy fog prevailed; necessitating the return to Hankow of two aeroplanes bound for Chungking. The plane left on schedule for Hongkong, but it is not yet known if it was able to get through the fog,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.