The opening act of yesterday evening's shelling of Hongkew by Chinese batteries situated—northwest of Shanghai was witnessed by a "North-China Daily News" reporter who was walking through the. streets and had just crossed the Japanese lines from the west at Tiendong Road and North Szechuen Road, and been allowed to go to the eastern part of Boone Road.
In the northern sky a huge column of smoke rose from a fire in the direction of the North Station. Otherwise the district was peaceful, with only sentries and a few Japanese civilians in the streets. The drone of a Japanese sea-plane was heard overhead.
Suddenly, as the stroller reached Boone and Woosung Roads, the first shell whizzed by and hit somewhere a short distance east of the Hongkew Market. It was exactly 6.10 p.m. and still daylight. The hit must have been very near, for a dense cloud of acrid shell-smoke came up immediately in Boone Road from the direction of Nanzing Road, but there was no fire following. Pieces of shrapnel rained on the Hongkew Police Station and other buildings in the neighbourhood. The Police Station, in dentally, has been shelled again and again,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.