Hangchow, June 28 Those who have seen Hangchow in its prosperity and beauty and now revisit it will be reminded of the vicissitudes of human affairs and what war can do towards the destruction of a civilization. Hangchow was originally a city of 600,000 people but before the Japanese came the population was reduced to one third almost over night. As the rich and the intelligent were all among those who fled, what was left was but a stump stripped of the upper luxuriant growth.
During the past ten years high officials of the ex-Nanking Government had vied with each other in building magnificent villas round West Lake, but today they are nearly all deserted, standing idle to the reproach of the selfishness of their owners. The pleasure boats that once covered the mirror lake either were sunk or taken away for more practical purposes and the few that escaped the cruel fate now only ply for the victors. Even the lake sides that were before sprinkled with gay visitors present a gloomy view for who would venture out for a walk where one meets fierce looking sentries at every corner of the street Besides the absence of street lights and the curfew law forbidding people to walk on the street after seven also rob the city of much of its activity and gaiety,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.