ATE at night, on tired we rode-into Chihsien, a Shansi city which the Japanese have twice occupied and twice been forced to abandon.
Early the next morning, the City Magistrate, an alert man in the forties, paid us a formal call.
He related the story of the city's experiences, giving details from a note-book.
The Japanese, he said, knowing the city to be an important Shansi centre, first marched there through the mountains more than a year ago.
'As was customary in Shansi, the inhabitants abandoned the city after removing all their food and valuables. Nevertheless, he continued, the city was' damaged to the extent of $150,000, many houses being burned.
About 400 Chinese wounded sol-diets, whom there was no time to remove, wore bayonetted to death by the Japanese, the magistrate slated. Their bodies, he said, were found when Chinese troops recaptured the town after ten days, after guerilla attacks had foreed the Japenese to retreat to the railway.
"The second time that the elly was attacked was last December," the Magistrate continued,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.