Famous Beauty Spot Goes Up in Flames Peiping, Mar. 7.
Practically the whole of Peiping's famous flower market, well-known to tourists, situated just outside the Hatamen Gate, was destroyed by fire this morning. More than 50 shops were gutted.
The fire started in a dry goods store at 8 a.m. and lasted until 1 p.m. Inefficiency of the local telephone system is said to have been one of the reasons for the extensive damage. It is reported that it took an hour for a call to get through to the fire brigade.—Reuter.
Tokyo, Mar. 7.
New Chinese mine warfare was one reason the reopening of the Yangtze River up to Nanking was being delayed, a spokesman for the Japanese Navy Office revealed today.
The spokesman told newspapermen that Chinese troops again started floating mines in the middle reaches of the river. He categorically denied, however, Chinese claims that a Japanese destroyer recently struck a mine and sank at the confluence of the Yangtze and Poyang Lake. The report claimed that more than 100 Ja-
He dismissed the report by saying that it was the usual Chinese propaganda.
Japanese authorities, the spokesman continued, meant to leave nothing desirable undone in preparing for the reopening of the Yangtze so as to preclude every possibility of foreign vessels being damaged when the river is reopened.
Japanese authorities in China, the spokesman added, were pushing pre-Parations for the reopening of the river in accordance with the original decision. The exact date for the reopening could not be set at this time, he said.—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.