The local police left their posts at 2.30 a.m. on December 31, due to their Chief, a Nanking appointee who had been here since September organizing aerial defence and who was apparently in process of settling a few accounts here before leaving, being slightly wounded (stabbed it is said) in the execution of the job and leaving town suddenly. At 545 am. word was received at Headquarters from a former police official that looters were working on Chungshan Road. A small party of about ten rgen—all that was available then—was immediately despatched to the scene and this handful of foreigners with a couple of armed Chinese policemen managed to hold them up and prevent their further progress, Meantime reinforcements kept on arriving and also manning the substations through phone messages and, armed with clubs, broke tup the mob which had by then swelled to hundreds with baton charges. Meantime looting was going of in various other sections of the city At 2 pin. Mr, Antoshewitz, foreign detective officer attached to the local police force, managed pf re-en about 40 Railway Guards 1o assist the volunteers and another 30 or so police returned to join the foreigners and before midnight a further few guards and police joined up. With motor patrols of foreigners adtompanying armed Chinese police touring the city, the situation was got under control.
On the first day of the New Year, the approval of the U. S. authorities permitted American nationals to join their fellow foreign citizens in preserving life-and property here. The "whole situation is now well in hand and volunteers have been by request, posted at the waterworks, electric light works, telephone company and Post Office to lend their support towards a continuance of these essential services.
(Delayed in Transit)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.