Jan. 7.
The latest mails to arrive from Home are bringing more vivid impressions of the German attempts to strike terror into the hearts of the British people by indiscriminate bombing. Letters repeat the concern felt by residents of London, which has undergone the worst that Goering and his Luftwaffe could unleash, over the situation of their friends in Shanghai. Similar unselfishness manifest in Telters from those in other towns of England," many of which have received Just as ferocious attacks as has London, proportionately to their size. AN these Totters express the utmost sympathy with the plight of the Londoners and minimize the sufferings experienced in their own areas, With such a spirit animating the British people, it ix no wonder that the Nazis are beginning to wonder which way to turn. Bomb Bristol, and the residents of that city do Tittle more than express their sympathy with some other city which has also suffered Bomb London, snd London hopes that Coventry or Birmingham has not got it so badly as the East End. A former resident of Shanghai, and later of Kobe, Japan, gives her impressions of a visit to London during October, well after Goering had done his worst with the capital, She writes: wish T could write pages about it. In the first place, after seeing it with one's own eyes isn't hard to believe Churchill when says that it will take ten years (at this rate) fo demolish halt the London houses. Plenty fof glass has gone and shops are boarded Up and on the boards are the funniest captions. People were s0 friendly and anxious to help each other Yor us), T came away feeling that 1 had a "treatment" for courage and cheerfulness. The only thing that hurt me was to see the poor wee Kiddies whose misguided parents think they love them too much to be parted with them and so are foreing them to hive a troglodyte existence In the Under= ground. Poor wee things. T was late or T think. T would have spent an hour trying. to con vince those women that we folk in the coun try would and could care for their children.
'The village in Hampshire from which the lady wrote hod already had its own experience of German raiders, and the phrase ""treatment' for courage and cheerfulness" is therefore doubly significant, The tributes to the manner in which Londoners, especially those in the hard hit East End, have stood up to the bombings are s0 frequent in letters forwarded to the "North-China Daily News" that only a few of them can be quoted. One of the most remarkable comes in a letter from a Scottish town where raids have been so frequent "that in time you get accustomed to it......and T am afraid we have slept soundly' through the last few visits." Writing of London, this correspondent who is "afraid he has slept through the last few raids on his own home town, says: "The marvellous example of the courage of the people of the little streets has touched all with pride. They are the aristocracy of herecs...... Bast London has stood its terrible pounding with patience undreamed of and with a courage unsurpassed, and the effect has been like another Dunkirk, a mir= aculeus uplifting of the hearts of men and everywhere throughout the land.
aristocracy of heroes" was not brought up on the playing elds of Bton, but within sound of Bow bells, 'They are' the people of whom an Irish writer said in the elghteenth century: "They are never so happy.
when you tell them they are being ruined." Goebbels, Goering, and Hitler have been telling them just that for upwards of sixteen months. For their sakes it is a pity that some Nazi philosopher had not informed them of Arthur Murphy's brilliant summary of the English character.
The latest illustrated papers from Home contain horrific pictures of night made into day by blazing London, and it is therefore satisfactory to read that the damage done by these fires was not nearly x0 extensive as the photographs of the glowing heavens pear 10 make out. A great dead depends upon the condition of the weather in which the photographs were taken. With lowering clouds a comparatively small blaze appears to be a huge one, while it was found in London that the billowing smoke from some of the large fires acted in the same way as clouds and, hanging over the scene of the fires, made the whole sky seem to be ablaze. Serious damage was, of course, done. But any Shanghaflander who wants an illustration of how a false impression can be created when clouds are low has only to stand at the end of one of the streets opening off the Bund and look towards the part of the city which is it up with neon lights, He will see a glow reflected from the sky such as he might sce if that part of the city were in flames. London has taken a lot of punishment and is not bowed down, Death and destruction are every night occurrences, but they make difference {o the resolution of the people of the world's greatest city. They will carry until the time comes—and it is not far distant—when those who are at present putting them to the test are themselves put to a similar test. The world will then sce which side can "take it!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.