In times of distress and excitement it is the natural human tendency to want to do something or to go somewhere, to avoid the apparent menace of the immediate moment. The fact that no-one can precisely define the danger or its probable*source does not affect this uncertainty. The salutary rule: "when in doubt do nothing" is forgotten, So Shanghai has seen streams of rickshaws bringing refugees frore Chapei into the Settlement and streams of steamer passengers leaving the Seti!ement for other ports. Poignant though these scenes are they have their lighter moments such as, for example, is revealed in the tsingtao Times" which records the experiences of two brothers, one a resident of Tsingtad, the other a resident of Tsinan, To each the same idea came on viewing the gloom around him There was a need to find that "better ole" of which Bairnsfather once drew a vivid picture. The train was the resort of both but in reverse direction Halfway between Tsingtao and Tsinan the brothers met on a platform of a small wayside station as their respective train: were waiting. They exchanged ideas and found that they had independently come to the same conclusion but with an essentially divergent premise. The 'Tsinan man thought Tsingtao was safe. His brother held to the contrary view. Whether the result' of this revelation was to send them each back to his original starting place, the story does not tell. It would have been a fitting termination to a quaint episode.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.