Hankow, Dec. 30.
Authoritative quarters here dispute ihe figures of the Chinese casualties in the defence of Nanking contained in an official Japanese commufiique issued in Shanghai yesterday. The communique played the Chinese losses at 80000 soldiers killed and an unknown number, believed to be great, wounded.
Military circles here state that about 80,000 Chinese troops defended Nan-Xing, of which 50,000 have been accounted for as having withdrawn to places of safety.
"The Chinese estimate of the Chi-mese casualties, they say, is 20,000 killed and wounded.—Reuter.
Admiral Shen Hung-lich, Mayor of Tsingtao, and Admiral Hsieh Kangcheh, the Garrison Commander, left the city to-day. All remaining troops and marines were withdrawn, and the Chinese police deserted their posts. Looting occurred in the Japanese shopping district.
The "Vigilantes," as the netwlyformed foreign volunteer corps have keen nicknamed, took over police duties. The atmosphere is very tense.
The flow of refugees who have been pouring out of Tsingtao to the interior in an unceasing stream was thickened to-day when thousands upon thousands of Chinese left the city, determined to evacuate safely before the arrival of the Japanese.
They travelled afoot, on bicycles, carts, wheelbarrows and every other form of transport available, carrying with them their meagre belonging It was a cavalcade of sorrow ud tragedy, representing ancther of those tremendous shifts of population which have marked the Sino-Japanese war.
Meanwhile move valuable property, both Chinese and Japanese, has been blown up. Three explosions, following in quick succession, told of iMe"destruction of the Kung Dah Cott Mill at Tsangkow, thirteen miles from Tsingtao. A huge fire was started, and soon the sky was covered with a pall of dark eke, a familiar sight here in those hectic days.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.