SPECIAL TO mum "Nenn."
Tenghsien, to some extent, is getting back to normal. The yearly market, at a large town near here, that a! tracts thousands of people, was held today and well attended. This is the opportunity for exchanging and selling all kinds of commodities from soup ladles to cattle and donkeys, The great scene of activity at present is the preparation for building a new Presbyterian church. The disturbances of last year and refugeeing with Christians has given a wonderful impetus to church attendance. The crowds are such that no two chapels can receive them.
Grain has been scarce and very high priced, so one can but stand amazed at the determination of the church members to give out of their poverty to this cause. The wood for the church is being brought in from the country side—the whole tree being bought. It is really remarkable how these large logs are moved using two cart-wheels, several oxen and donkeys and a number of men. The longest as measured was 40 ft. and several were 18 to 20 in. in diameter, with one as much as 2 ft.
'A coolie in France, learned during the world war a cheap and easy way to burn limestone and he is doing this for the church. He built a small kiln in a bank, made a flue from the roadway up; the stones and the coal are placed in this in alternate layers and when it burns out the lime is there and not blacked.
The trains run with great regularity and are overcrowded. Many more freight trains are in evidence than formerly—some of these for military purposes, of course.
People hear shooting every night "but much of this is by those on guard to let people know they are on the job.
'The hospital is adding to its personnel' one of the refugee German-Jews from Shanghai, a physician. This station with over 600 students and eighteen or more foreigners has no medical practitioner, not even a Chinese one, that has been trained in Western medicine. So he will be heartily welcome.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.