sriCAL TO THE
Peiping, Feb. 28. New Year passed off much as usual.
The casual visitor would scarcely have noticed that Peiping was in the Occupation of a foreign invader.
The famous fair at the Liulichang and those at the various temples were as full as ever with the usual crowds, dressed in their best clothes, bent on enjoying themselves, Fireworks were permitted this year, and the New Year's Eve fusillade was almost as noisy as ever.
The only people who may possibly have noticed the presence of the Japanese were those professional writers who make out the lucky red strips that are pasted up at the house doors: two vertical and one horizontal. For in certain parts of the city the Hsinminhui had been entering into competition with them and had been issuing these strips free of charge.
The perpendicular ones contained a variety of statements as to the happy effect the new government would have for China in the coming year, while the horizontal strip made the interesting and optimistic assertion: Chung Jih I Chia (China Japan one family.) Many Chinese assured me privately that the police had brought these strips round to their houses and ordered them, under threats of dire consequences, to paste them up.
I am, however, not quite convinced of this, and am inclined to believe that the thrifty Chinese householder, never at any time given to wasting his money, if he can get something for nothing, was not at all so loathe, as he would have one believe, to accept these free gifts, and thus save himself a few coppers. However satisfactory this "all one fami slogan may sound in theory, one certainly does not notice much of it in practice, even in pacified and quiescent Peiping. Each of the two "families" keeps very much to itself.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.