Soochow, Dec. 16, Crops throughout this area have been unusually good and the rice yield has been high. The farmers have more money than ever before from the sale of the crop. This money is not worth so much as prices of all commodities have more or less followed rice, The condition of the farmer is much better than, the small shopkeeper and clerk class in Soochow itself, In the city fuel, food and clothing have all advanced and the salaries have nothing like kept pace and many are clamouring for any sort of home work for members of the family, Some seasonal work brought orders for gloves and other articles for export, The glove order kept several thousands busy last summer, The knitting industry is overcrowded and many machines now are idle either for lack of'orders or capital Most of the factories in Soochow have been opened on a ce-operative basis and at least this is giving work for the needy, Several old gardens have been reconditioned and are taking on new significance under the present regime, The former garden of the Manchus in the northern part of the city was all but a scrap heap several years ago, It now has been put into condition for the use of officials and their friends and knows a bit of its old splendour.
Roads have been generally improved throughout the area and most bridges have been removed and the cuts filled to assure the roads being kept open, Petrol is advancing in price to the point where the private Individual does not find it profitable to operate his car, City streets are being repaired and made passable, Cobblestone streets and heavy traffic call for continual work, Church programmes are being carried forward and the people are attending as never before. An evangelistic campaign in October found all churches putting on a simultaneous campaign throughout the city and all preaching halls were filled each day, Relief work continues but on a very limited scale, in "hoochs" and whirling heels rollicking in all the old fashioned Scottish dances, A pleasant early morning was Gas bombs were not dropped on London in the last war because the Kaiser forbade it at the last moment —so says Mr. Edward J. Bing, jour-rialist, soldier and traveller, in his autobiography "Of the Meek and the Mighty," which was published recently in London.
In Berlin, after the war, a former Zeppelin commander told him the Germans had perfected a deadly gas bomb. "And why was it never used?" asked Mr. Bing.
"Well" said the commander, "my Zeppelin was provided with the bombs immediately the invention was completed, and I had orders to drop them on London.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.