Optimism, Ignorance and Indifference Noted in Different Sections of Populace rons Our Own Peiping, July 26.
We woke up this morning to find fresh crisis, The week-end had Seemed to promise on end to thi local crisis. And many of us had gone out to our cottages in the coun-{ry to try and escape the terrifte heat the last few days. The clash at Langfang. puts an end to all hopes of any peaceful arrangement and will boring. hostilities very close to our doors. Yet after the menacing tall of Japanese military gentlemen in Tientsin on Saturday it is perhaps no! 0 surprising that there has been a fresh. incident, What is surprising fg the place, and above all that It was the 38th -Division that has been Involved, with whom hitherto the Japanese had expressed themselves well sctisfed. matter any "more. What is the Centrat_ Government doing? - Where are its fleet of aeroplanes, its modern divisions, and all the rest? "What, haven't you heard? " Why, eight antialreratt guns have arrived at Changhisintlent' Eighty did you say? No, eight, I went home marvelling. More optimism, or rather super-optimism.
The altitude of these people is neatly summed up in the remark of jo modern educated Chinese business man to a foreign friend who, was anxiously questioning him about the situation, "You foreigners are more excited about the situation than are we Chinesel" It is about the truth. Nevertheless, it it does come to general hostilities, it is going a case of bows and arrows against lightning—with a vengeance!
Rumours specially in Japanese quarters, that this was the last straw for the Army people who were determined to cleat tp the situation for good and all, (We have heard that phrase rather often lately). The guns were to go off at noon. "They did not, In the after-hoon I drove out with some friends the Hsiyuan barracks, These were originally the barracks of The Im-Perial Guard divisions in Manchu Gays and lie adjoining the Summer Palace about seven miles north-west of Peiping. They are now occupied bby about 5,000° men of the 37th division,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.