Peiping, Dec. 6.
HE death of Marshal Wu Pei-fu, China's warrior-poet, of septicaemia following an emergency operation on December 4, is widely mourned by the local Chinese.
He was immensely popular among his fellow-countrymen and it was for this reason that the Japanese are said to have made repeated, but what appeared to have been entirely unsuccessful, efforts to enlist his support for the proposed new central government of China.
Undoubtedly, Marshal Wu would have had a large following, especially in North China.
He was one of China's most picturesque warlords of the old days and was also one of the most strong-willed. It is understood that he had repeatedly and adamantly refused to associate himself with Japanese efforts to form a new central government in China, declaring on every occasion that all he wanted to do was to live in retirement in Peiping. Only recently, it was rumoured here that he had again refused to take a prominent part in the proposed new government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.