It will be noted from the foregoing that the major and, in every respect, the principal part of Hankow Chinese City continues to be deserted. The Chinese Government, prior to its evacuation, had destroyed the Japanese Concession and sundry Government buildings. Everything else in the three cities of Hankow, Wuchang and Hanyang had been left intact. Since the Chinese evacuation there has been a series of serious fires in Hankow Chinese City, which have laid low a very great, perhaps indeed, the greater part of the city, other than the Refugee Zone which has been entirely immune from fires. This vast area is practically deserted. Certainly the Chinsee are by no means being encouraged to return to it, and this lends weight to the report freely circulating that the Japanese intend rebuilding it to be a commercial centre for their own purposes.
A tour through this area is instructive. Here, as widely also throughout the ex-concessions, the Japanese have removed everything of value to themselves, and the rest has been used as firewood. The blight which has fallen on large sections of Hi kow can be likened to nothing so well as to prairies after a swarm of locusts has passed over them.
Tu the early days of the occupation, the Japanese resorted to widespread eviction of Chinese from their houses in the ex-concessions and, though on a modest scale, this continues to thi day. In view of the destruction of the Japanese Concession this action intelligible and must be condoned, but not so the heartless and unnecessary brutality which frequently has been observed to accompany it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.