Again, the city, two years or less ago, was an important railway centre. People coming down from Kansu, Sinkiang and the far northwest, or coming up from Szechuen and southwest China, passed through here. In that respect Peiping today is a dead end; it is completely cut off. The Kalgan line is open as far as Potow, but all communication with the north west and Mongolia is completely interrupted; the Hankow line is theorem tically open as far the Yellow River. but travel on it even for that limited distance is precarious and uncertain the same applies to the Tsin-Pu line which only runs as far as Tsinanfu. Peiping is certainly no longer the great railway junction that it once was. The chief users of north China railways are the Japanese themselves who continue to pour into the country in the hope of making their fortunes, a hope that has so far entirely failed to come true.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.