This city is in the middle of a period when a heavy pall of darkness settles over it every night from 840 o'clock on, Not a light is to be seen anywhere. There are no cheery scratchings of matches, the tiny bursts of sudden flame and the bright red glow of cigarettes on the streets. The hum of aeroplanes is heard overhead. It is a time of light control in preparation for air manceuvres which will occur throughout the whole of Manchoukuo from some time towards the end of this month to continue into the next.
These air exercises were originally scheduled for July 14 but spurred on by the situation which was developing in North China the authorities suddenly decided at 2 p.m. on July 12 that they were to start from that night, Luckily preparations for the lath as to black coverings for the windows with the purchase of black light globes were so far advanced that everything went off well the first night though residents had a certain feeling of tenseness as to whether they were getting ready for something real or not.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.