Letters From China

AT SEA
FROM BELAWAN TO SINGAPORE
Third Month 20-26, 1927
WE anchored in mid-harbor at Belawan. We have taken on only a few new passengers, among them an ardent Chinese revolutionist, now a member of the Kuomintung. He spoke to me yesterday on the upper deck, where it is my custom to read, and be has had his chair placed next to mine permanently — that is, as far as Singapore, which is his destination. He is in the Malay Peninsula to collect funds from the 400,000 Chinese resident there, who, he tells me, have been the financial backbone of the revolution since before 1911. His concern, an anti-Russian campaign in China. He speaks in staccato Mandarin, I suppose for privacy, although on this boat, where German is the language understood, English would be equally secretive. His discourse is about as follows: —
‘Papers have come into the hands of some of us in Hankow which make a break with Soviet Russia imperative — if China is to live as a separate entity. These papers show that the Russians look upon us Chinese with the utmost contempt and have offered us their friendship only that they may use the Kuomintang for the furtherance of their own aggressive scheme to annex China under Moscow.
‘Our leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, accepted the extended hand of Russia, with gold in the clasp, shortly before his death, to bring new power into the Nationalistic cause. In the beginning our Russian visitors were cautious. They pretended to believe in our ideals. With insidious cunning they wormed their way into our innermost circles.
Once in, they slowly shouldered us Chinese from positions of leadership and usurped control of our Nationalistic activities.
‘Secret meetings are held by Borodin, Galen, Petroff, Rolland, and their confederates in which decisions are made and orders which we have never seen are drawn up and issued under the Chinese Kuomintang seal. The posters, leaflets, and general propaganda, the most important feature of our campaign, have been taken out of our control by our “advisers.” In Hankow no Chinese can enter the propaganda-preparation factory without the approval of Mr. Borodin — consequently thousands of ideas are spread broadcast which are not our ideals. More than three hundred confederates have come from Russia to help the original advisers; they are all kindly paid from Moscow, through the Soviet Legation at Peking. The attitude of “non-interference” on the part of the other Powers leaves Russia a clear field.’
I could not resist asking him if ‘non-interference’ is not the only possible attitude, and stressing the fact that China can emerge as a strong nation only if she works out her own problem.

Two days later
The astounding news of the Nanking disaster reached us by wireless to-day. Almost immediately our new Chinese friend came, with tears in his eyes, to offer us his assurance that he speaks in the tongue of thousands of his countrymen when he says that it is an incident deeply regrettable.
I find it almost impossible of belief. Nanking is my best beloved of all the Chinese cities in which I have lived. There are no foreign concessions. All races have lived in harmony within the walls, and friendships have been without barriers of creed. Most mystifying is the list of the dead: Mr. Williams, Dr. Sachell Smith, Mr. Huber. All men of long residence in China, and all personally known to me as men strongly pro-Chinese in sympathy. Mr. Huber was with us in Canton and was one of the few men who went freely about that city during the months of tension.

MANILA, Fourth Month 2, ’27
We have had six smooth hot days from Singapore. I revel in tropic heat, so quite enjoyed it.
At tea we heard the rumor that the Chinese Nationalist Party, right wing, has two representatives here scouting about for American trained officers to drill their soldiers — West Point graduates preferred and a good price paid for them, Filipinos taken as second choice. Half an hour later I met one of them, a cheery young man in Canton in the spring of 1926, but very much depressed now. He tells me that the Nationalist Party is in a sorry plight, betrayed by Russia, and that, although the right wing of the party now holds Nanking and Shanghai, it has not been able to shake off seven Russian military advisers who pretend to side with General Chiang Kai-shek in his quarrel with Borodin; but that Chiang Kai-shek has agreed to dismiss them if they can be replaced by advisers similarly efficient in the art of war.

HONGKONG, Fourth Month 6, ’27
We came into Hongkong harbor at daybreak. The trim neatness of this English city perched on the rocky heights of Victoria Island never fails to thrill me.
Anne had her trunks packed to transship to the Canton boat, but Robin failed to meet her. We learned that trouble brewed at Canton and he was on duty with the Volunteers. She made an attempt to get upriver, but a shipping strike was imminent and no boat possible that day. While we were at lunch a wireless came through from the American gunboat at Canton with greetings and word that Robin had started down by train.
The train is due to make the trip in four hours. Anne refused my companionship when she met Robin, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening between the boat and the railway station, where she asked the whereabouts of the train at half-hour intervals.
The young horn-rimmed-spectacled Chinese clerk was most kind, telephoning up the line continuously. His messages went about like this: ’Engine trouble—train no can come to-day. Englishman on board makee much fuss.’ — ’Can do. Have fix piece of wire. Quick come.’ — ‘Engine break down. Englishman take sleep.’ — ’Engine one lung all right. Can come slow.’ — ‘Lung finish. Train dead.’ Then at last, ‘All right now. Hongkong have lend one engine.’ Robin arrived at something after eleven.
While Anne was meeting the train I went to the Hongkong Hotel and was surprised to find the upstairs tearoom, where the orchestra plays, filled with Chinese. The steward told me he had n’t a table. I was turning away when people began waving to me and calling greetings and I realized that the room was filled with Chinese friends from up the West River. People who never went away from home formerly now at an English hotel tea dance! They were there in full body — grandmothers and babies in arms as well as mothers and fathers and grown-up daughters and sons.
I had a delightful time going from table to table. They have all come to Hongkong to await the outcome of political conditions — frightened by Communism. They were thoroughly enjoying their holiday. Old Madame Kwong, from Samsui, told me that she has put all her money safely in the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. I twitted her on her former very emphatic views against the rightness of the British holding Hongkong. She laughed and answered, ‘Confucius says, “Concern yourselves only with your own affairs; he who meddles in politics walks in a dangerous place.”’

SHANGHAI, Fourth Month 12, ’27
I have been in Shanghai four days and go on to Tientsin to-morrow. The city is crammed with refugees from the Yangtze valley — Chinese as well as Westerners. All passages on vessels to Europe and America are booked for the next three months.
The streets are thronged with people who have arrived here, after unpleasant experiences in Chinese mobs, by hazardous journeys overland and by native river craft. A Refugee Committee has combed the city for every available private bed. The shops and the local residents have done their utmost in replenishing depleted wardrobes. Many people were unable to bring anything save the clothes they wore, and often were forced en route to give up garments which pleased some passing bandit.
Everywhere I hear tales of wanton destruction of property—drugs thrown away by looters, surgical instruments smashed by demoniac mobs, schoolbooks burned, furniture broken. Every individual with whom I have talked is more concerned about the fate of Chinese friends who could not get away than about material property.
Mrs. Su Ling-fu told me that the wells of her native village are filled with suicides following rape; that the gray-haired elders were paraded through the streets in grotesque high hats with nasty placards hung from their necks, and that her uncle was killed by the checker-board death — a square of flesh cut away daily. Anyone possessed of property to the value of more than seventy-five dollars was labeled a capitalist and the property seized. She says that the Nationalists preceded their arrival with propaganda and came into the village without bloodshed. She was one of a committee to welcome them. For one week they gave promise of a splendid future. The village breathed a sigh of relief that the day of war lords was over. Then the contingent was changed. The first soldiers went forward to new territory and men came instigating the reign of terror. With antiforeign demonstrations, parades, and meetings they stirred the mass to a fever — then turned the excited mob on local citizens.
I went to see a medical missionary from upcountry who, I had heard, came from the district where Mai-da’s maternal grandmother lives. I found her ill in bed in a large dormitory-like room where there were ten camp beds, and half a dozen children fretting in one corner. She had no news for me — her hospital was looted and she escaped in a boat, hidden under a load of hay by a farmer on whom she had operated for cataracts last winter. She also said that the Nationalists had been met with enthusiasm in her district—she had taken part in a joyous demonstration. Then a reign of terror had been instigated by agitators not native to that place.
I went to tea dances at the Astor House on two afternoons. There I saw the same type of crowd as in Hongkong, with a more liberal sprinkling of Westerners. Not many local residents, but nervous refugees who feel the need of constant activity to keep sane. All have the same glassy eyes — as though they had experienced horrors of which they dare not think.
The Shanghai Settlement and the French Concession are surrounded by trenches and barricades of barbed wire with soldiers at every point of entry, but I felt that I must see Zung-wei’s baby, so I went into the native city. She is hoping to get a flat in the Settlement before long, as she does not feel safe outside. Her baby is a chubby darling just learning to crawl. She said that all modern Chinese, like herself, are in a curious predicament—theoretically they are against foreign concessions, and yet these are the only refuge in the present upheaval.
She says that the Nanking disaster is clear to Chinese intelligence! General Chiang Kai-shek had a quarrel with Mr. Borodin at Hankow, voicing the resentment felt by all Chinese at the character of the Russian advisers. He departed downriver, and ahead of him went the command, by wireless, that each port at which he touched was to be disturbed by an antiforeign demonstration which would discredit him with the Western Powers. A score of Mr. Borodin’s Russian confederates were in Nanking; the most rabid of Chinese Communists was head of the political bureau. General Chen Chien was temporarily in charge of the army there. He is senior to General Chiang in the Kuomintang and in the Nationalists’ army, and embittered by the latter’s rapid rise to power.
When General Chiang’s boat reached Nanking the antiforeign disaster began. Chiang did not land and seek to seize control, but went on to Shanghai, where he gathered about him C. C. Wu, the son of Wu Ting-fang, the popular Chinese minister, Hu Han-min, and other conservative members of the Kuomintang who have been at variance with the left wing since the early days in Canton. Orders similar to those sent to Nanking were sent from Hankow for a demonstration at Shanghai, but were not carried out. Chiang returned to Nanking with his cabinet and succeeded in assuming control.

TIENTSIN,Fourth Month 20, ’27
I arrived at Taku Bar about five o’clock last Fifth-day afternoon. When the pilot came aboard to steer us to a safe anchorage, he told me that his office had received word I was to wait on the ship until my husband came for me. I waited until ten the following morning, and then went upriver on the ship’s tender. The Hai Ho is very narrow; one can almost reach out and touch the bank on either side in places. We had to draw up in widened harbors at intervals to allow oceangoing craft to pass. Many of these vessels were loaded with Chinese farmers and their wives en route to Manchuria. It was three o’clock when we neared Tientsin, to find both banks of the river lined with soldiers in the uniform of Marshal Chang Tso-lin’s army.
They did not appear to be engaged in actual warfare, although it is difficult sometimes to tell in this country, where warriors put up their umbrellas or brew a cup of tea at need regardless of orders to charge. They had stuck their flagstaffs in the ground and some of them were asleep. Our boat pressed on between the lines until we sighted a Japanese oil-burner, and saw that soldiers fired into the water in front of her every time she moved. Just as we stopped I saw my husband walking along the bund and waved to him. He came to the bank and explained that the now ex-governor was suspected by Chang Tso-lin of a plot to hand Tientsin over to the Nationalists, had fled from his residence, and was thought to be on the Japanese boat.
We walked to our house, which is in the ex-German concession, now Chinese territory. The place is surrounded by high walls, and has two entrance gates and a drive which curves up under stone pillars which reach to the roof. We have lovely old trees and a goodsized garden, entered through moon gates, with a cool summerhouse at the far end. There is a hedge of white lilac in full bloom.
I found the house full of refugees — all old friends, so it is very nice. We have had a doctor from the interior, but he is gone. He wrapped many of his surgical instruments in small packets and hid them in the roof of his hospital; all property in his section has been systematically looted, but he hopes to have tools for work when he returns.
A Chinese who has left Changsha is with us now. He told me that the ‘grand old man’ of Hunan, a scholar much beloved by all Chinese people, famous for his library of classic literature which has always been open to public use, was killed by the government which is in authority there, and his library burned, because he would not put his personal seal to a proclamation advocating Communism.
And in Peking twenty students suspected of an interest in Communism, many of them under twenty years of age, have been strangled by the old method, without trial. This is a cruel death — the victim is made to stand against a board on which a rope is passed through two holes; with his neck in the noose, a lever is pulled and he is partially killed, then revived, then choked and revived alternately for twenty minutes. The condemned are made to stand and watch their fellows die — the one most seriously condemned to wait until last for death.
As a Chinese friend who called on me yesterday said, ‘Confucius taught that the government which gave the largest personal liberty to the largest number of people was the ideal — but the day of Confucius is dead.’

TIENTSIN, Fifth Month 1, ’27
The little Manchu Emperor, Pu Yi, — or John, as he prefers to be called in English, — was at the St. George’s dinner dance at the Country Club, accompanied by one Empress. He is a pleasant lad of twenty-two years, but looks weak, no doubt the result of royal inbreeding. His favorite pastime is trick bicycling. The Empress is a wax doll — a creamy skin, soft brown eyes, brows like the arch of a butterfly’s wings, and masses of glossy black hair. She is very slender.
Mai-da has explained to me that when the Emperor receives invitations from Westerners his two Empresses take turns in accepting, as they are aware of the foreign custom which makes it bad form to fetch two wives. She says that few people can distinguish between two Manchu ladies of equal slimness and corresponding age. In response to Chinese invitations they both go. They were both at Kissling’s this morning buying chocolates, and are equally lovely. They have a modern house in the Japanese Concession and are going up to Peking next week on a sight-seeing tour, as they had no opportunity to see the city when they were confined to the routine of palace life. They are much interested in America and keen to visit there, ‘if travel were not so expensive.’
On the twenty-seventh we went to a dinner given by the Minister of Finance and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Chwang King-ko at Foh Loh Lin. The tables were decorated with colored seeds sprinkled to depict historical scenes. I must learn to do it. As usual with official dinners, the menu was most tedious — I kept count to twelve courses. After dinner we had a gorgeous time. They took us to a Chinese theatre at which Mei Lan Fang was performing.
A Chinese theatre is a combination of social club and stage. The play continues for many hours. It pleases my senses better than the timed precision of the Western stage, where the plot clicks to an arranged climax.
Yesterday our house steward spoke to me about the gardener, who he said would have to go. In the early days of my marriage I had ideas as to who should control matters domestic, but I was politely broken to the yoke of Chinese control, so I could only nod assent. To-day he is gone. Lee the younger, for many years gardener to the tupan of Shantung, son of Lee the elder, our gateman, has been summoned. It will be a matter of three weeks before he can receive his father’s letter, close his Shantung affairs, and arrive here. In the meantime our seedlings must be transplanted. I discovered Mou, an upstairs ‘helper,’ who has a flair for gardening, at work on them this morning, and have been helping him. At the same time I have gleaned some knowledge of Chinese secret societies.
Mou has friends in four: Red Spears, Yellow Sands, Flower Basket, and Heavenly Gate. He, as well as his father, two uncles, and a brother, belongs to the latter. He explained that for years the gods have been anxious because of incessant warfare. They see how difficult it is for the honest, industrious people to plant their crops, gather their harvest, and keep their shops. So the gods take pity on a district and drop a sacred stone tablet with commands written on it, which if obeyed give the people strength and courage to protect their homes.
The tablet of the Heavenly Gate was found on the hillside near his native place one week after a Russian, two Cantonese men, and a woman had come to distribute leaflets and make speeches about a new government.
He says that his people have heard plenty of ‘dragon’s breath’ and do not want a government. They want peace to worship their ancestors and beget children. The tablet gave instructions as to how to drive away all intruders. He says that all that the Red Spears are doing in Honan is to protect their native places. They do not care which side wins the war, but the gods help them to prevent its being fought on their farms.
Our acacia trees are a mass of buds which send forth a fragrant perfume.

TIENTSIN, Fifth Month 25, ’27
On First day we were the guests of the Hai Ho Conservancy for an all-day launch picnic. The party was international: Chinese, Italians, French, Germans, Japanese, Swiss, Belgians, Danish, British, and Americans to the number of perhaps fifty. The purpose, a review and discussion of the silted condition of the river, which threatens to flood the adjacent country during the rainy season of July and August.
The country is so harassed with taxes, for the purposes of war, that funds for public benefit such as adequate river dredging are not available. There is a watermark on the first floor of our house made by the flood level a few years ago. Such a disaster means the destruction of villages where houses are made of adobe, the drowning of the winter food crop, and many deaths. Engineers are agreed that this river could be made a splendid entry from the sea, and a system of irrigation could be made which would refresh the crops during the long dry season.
The day was notable for me because I rediscovered Chang Ming-lee after a separation of eight years. She has given up portraiture, and found her motive in the revival of native arts and their application to modern Chinese use. With her private fortune she is able to give occupation to craftsmen who have been idle since the fall of the throne. Many processes are carefully guarded family treasures, and in danger of loss unless used. She is having lacquer made again on linen foundation by the slow process which does not crack, as the modern imitation invariably does. She has just finished the interior decoration of a Chinese hotel in Tientsin and is busy with sketches for a café in Tsingtao, in addition to several private houses. She is not interested in export, but in Chinese use of what her workmen produce. Her particular flair has always been dress — on the river she wore a harmonious costume in shades of russet, brown, and gold. Mai-da tells me that her influence in the revival of the ancient Han costume is evident everywhere in smart Chinese circles.
I spent this morning idling about the Chinese city. 1 sat for a time in the workshop of a coppersmith who was hammering an elaborate design on a brazier, without pattern other than that in his head. It is restful to be back in this country where one need have no excuse for sitting beside a stranger other than the desire for companionship.
He told me that the city officials are praying for rain twice daily, at nine and at four, in the Temple of the Supreme God. The Commissioner of Civil Affairs leads the procession, followed by an official from every other department in the government; they start from the Chief Station of the Fire Brigade, and walk carrying burning tapers. They offer the god five dishes each of fruit and vegetables each time of prayer, burn paper petitions in the urn, and fall prostrate nine times before the image of the god, knocking the head on the floor three times in each kotow.
From the threatened famine he went on to the Dragon Festival, which falls on the fourth of Sixth month, our count, and is one of the three dates each year when all Chinese accounts must be balanced, in accord with custom. He told me that times are very bad, the city filled with war refugees from Shantung and the Yangtze valley who can get no work and are dependent upon the charity of local laborers who are also in a precarious condition. The licorice-root trade, employing several thousand men, is closed down by exorbitant taxes; the carpet tax has stopped all the Chinese weavers and all but one foreign-owned establishment, putting eight thousand people out of work, while a tobacco tax is rumored which will make it impossible to continue business.
A little way along the street I met a young Student who told me that local conditions were such that the people would welcome a change in government, and that the Nationalists could come in without bloodshed—if they could rid themselves of the Communists first.
In the Hall of Classics the attendant, who had just returned from a week’s holiday at his native place, told me that the people of the interior have gone back to primitive man-power methods of transporting their goods, even where the railways are running, because of the frequency with which soldiers make off with engines and loaded cars. He said that the retreating Fengtien troops destroyed the railway tunnel south of the Yellow River and took away all the imported ironwork of the bridge. He is firm in his belief that a new prophet is to be given to China to revive the truths of Confucius, who taught men to live in peace and harmony. He declares that it is very foolish for the Christians to run away now, if they really have a message from a great prophet, as they claim. I pointed out that they had been badly treated and certainly would suffer death in angry mobs if they remained in the interior. He only shook his head and said, ’The disciples of a great prophet do not fear physical death — only death of the spirit.’
I said that I was glad to know that he would stay in his place and admonish the mob, if it came, in the language of Confucius. But he answered, ‘I should run away. I am only an attendant who sweeps the floor in times of peace.’
I enclose Anne’s letter.

CANTON, Fifth Month 19, ’27
DEAREST SISTER,
We went down to Hongkong on Fifth day and spent the week-end at Cheng-chow island. Great excitement coming back on the Lungshan Secondday morning! I was asleep when Robin dashed into the cabin, woke me, pulled off my rings, and pushed me down on the floor, whispering, ’ We are fired on by the Whampoa Cadets.’ I lay flat under the porthole listening to my watch tick off the minutes from seven until seven-twenty to the accompaniment of the whizz of bullets, punctuated by the thud when they struck. One went through the bathroom. When all was quiet we slipped out to investigate — a bullet went through the funnel; several were embedded in the deck, and three near portholes. Luckily most passengers were asleep and no one was hurt. The river passenger boats are now escorted by gunboats.
The Consuls consider it unsafe for us to live at the White Heron’s Nest, so we have taken a flat on Shameen — the Nicklemans’ flat. There is hardly ever a lighted house on Shameen after eleven. The Volunteers drill, drill, drill. Coolies no longer lounge and spit insolently on the front bund. The benches are clean and fit to sit on.

Canton City is quiet and almost unbelievably clean. There are still some antiforeign posters about, but the attitude of the people is friendly. There was much more ‘hot air’ and publicity about the anti-Red clean-up here than actual doing, but it had the desired effect of quietening the trouble-makers and giving the people confidence to come out of hiding and go on with trade. A number of really sensible Western-educated students are here and they have good modern ideas for sanitation and improvement — if peace continues. I go about the city quite unmolested.
Things look fairly prosperous in Chinese households, and even the people in the streets look well fed. The market is full of produce; prices are high, but wages have gone up, so the level is about the same. There is considerable furor about the disbandment of the ‘strikers,’ who wish the merchants to pour four millions into their headquarters’ coffers to pay them off. In reality most of the workers went to work long ago and the names on the strikers’ lists are idlers who never did work, so the merchants are not hustling to comply. They are too busy trying to recoup what they lost during the enforced curtailment of trade. The Chinese merchants are a fine lot of people and it is a shame the way they are harassed, worried, and taxed.
We have been up the West River, in a launch, for an all-day picnic, the first picnic trip up in two years. We went ashore and played tag with some country kids — they are fleet of foot and impossible to catch. I like the country people — they are so wholesome and have such a delicious primitive sense of what is a joke.
It is ten to twelve now and I must go swimming before lunch. We have a swimming gala on Sixth month sixteenth, so I must get some diving practice. At present I am jolly rotten.
Dearest love to thee,
ANNE

TIENTSIN, Sixth Month 18, 1927
Our garden is a bower of roses. We have tea there and I have made friends, over the wall, with two Chinese children who live in the next place. They have pushed a garden table, on which to stand, up on their side. I often catch them peering at us, but they never ‘come up’ until all guests are gone — then they shyly accept gifts of little cakes.
The boy has twice worn a sailor costume, but the girl invariably has pink silk trousers and coat. They tell me that they have five mothers and one father. Father has gone to Dairen to find a house and they were to follow, but now the ‘number one mother’ will not move because she says it will be quite safe here, as the U. S. A. marines are coming to protect all the people.
Since then the marines have arrived and we have dined with General Castner, in charge of the American army in China, and met General Smedley Butler, commander of the marines.
We have also dined at the French, Belgian, and German Consulates this week, as well as been the guests of the Italian Consul to hear General Mobile, the Italian aviator, tell of his flight over the North Pole. At one dinner I sat next to the Chinese Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, who proved a charming light-hearted companion. He does not speak English and holds no brief for anything modern; he has ‘forbidden ’ his wife to bob her hair. Mr. Tao, a young Chinese secretary of the Foreign Office, is popular everywhere. He is modern, with a wide smile and a chirpy manner. Last year when he was sent to negotiate with the Japanese about the firing from the Taku forts on a Japanese gunboat, he swung into the office and said abruptly, ‘I hate you — I hate you Japanese. You are always making me trouble. I was just off to the Western Hills for a holiday with my wife—you just stir up trouble to annoy me.’ He is often at dinners at the Japanese Consulate and in private houses. Hostesses treasure him because he is sure to enliven the conversation.
Old customs and new jostle here. As I write, a Chinese wedding procession passes, a red-and-gold pageant with gayly dressed banner-bearers and musicians strumming instruments to which the bearers of the bride’s canopied and sealed chair keep time. Two or three such processions pass weekly, and at the Café Riche, National Grand Hotel, Jazz Gardens, and the Olympic Roof the descendants of other ancient families can be seen every evening dancing modern steps to Western tunes. Not only young returned students, but silkskirted rotund fathers are caught in the swirl of syncopation.
Modern electrical appliances are popular. Every tiny shop has electric light. Mai-da, who was married from a canopied chair, has an electric cooking stove, and the doors of her new garage, built to accommodate the Packard limousine her husband gave her for her birthday, are replicas of the doors of an English cathedral. When I failed to praise them, she pricked me with the information that they are no more sacrilegious than the use of an image of Kuan Yin as the base of a lamp, which her husband saw in a Philadelphia drawing-room.
Wellington Koo’s family came down from Peking to their house on Race Course Road on the fifth. He is resigning from the government. Several Chinese officials have removed their families from Peking recently, and on the eighth Marshal Chang Tso-lin issued a mandate forbidding such changes of residence, as it excites the mass of people. He sent to his house at Mukden for his fifth concubine, enlarged his staff of servants, and generally gave his residence permanency to offset the rumor that he holds himself in readiness for flight.
Rumors of an impending collapse of the Peking government have been in the mouths of street venders, fish sellers, hot-cake men, tea-house minstrels, and like purveyors of gossip to the illiterate public for two weeks. Substance was given to the rumor by the absence of General Sutton’s ponies from the races, where they have formerly been favorites, the public sale of his motor cars, and his sudden departure from China, because of a disagreement, so the gossipers retail, over the pocketing by a Chinese general of funds meant for war purposes. General Sutton, a tall, daring adventurer, is a blond hero to the common people of the North. Since his departure the action of Generals Chang Chih-kung and Tien Wei-chin, who came north for conference and received arms and money to push the line southward, but turned face and joined the Southern cause when they reached the firing line, has increased alarm.
The people have lost faith in the paper money and wait day and night in the courtyard of the government bank here hoping to change their notes for silver. It is pitiful to see them.
The Nankai and Peiyang Universities closed early to permit their students to return home ‘before trouble broke out,’ and precipitated a sudden closing of all middle and lower schools, thus further tightening public tension.
Marshal Chang Tso-lin sent out a circular telegram a few days ago querying his generals and Tupan Yen Hsi-shan, of Shansi, as to their opinion of the wisdom of his assuming a dictatorship to restore confidence. To-day he assumed office with much pomp and ceremony, without waiting for the opinions of those who did not answer promptly.

TIENTSIN,Seventh Month 1, ’27
The thermometer registers 109 in the shade. The officials continue to walk through the dusty streets twice daily, carrying burning tapers, to the Temple of the Supreme God, to petition for rain.
Chinese friends caution Westerners against venturing away from the protection of their armies and gunboats, warning them that the voice of conservative China is gagged in all political councils; and at the same time they evince alarm that Westerners are closing their affairs and returning to their native lands by every steamer, and cry that this exodus will push progress back hundreds of years both materially and spiritually.
I have seen figures compiled by a young Chinese economist which show that the Chinese small farmer is migrating north in unprecedented numbers — and taking with him his chattels and his family. This man has returned from Manchuria, where he says the roads are filled with homestead seekers from Shantung and the Yangtze valley who sleep under the stars by night and trek by day, carrying their possessions as best they can. A large percentage of the women trudge on bound feet and have never been ten miles from home before. He reports a similar exodus from South China into the Philippines, Indo-China, and the Malay Peninsula. He shows that more than 900,000 Chinese have left their native land in the past four months.
Rumor is current that the coming election in the United States will make

politic the withdrawal of at least a number of the marines from China as a vote-securing measure.
Murmurs that the English taxpayer is not in favor of his country continuing to stand sponsor for and thereby incur the expense of policing those strips of land placed under her jurisdiction, as places of segregation for Westerners, and into which peoples of all nations, including Chinese, have crowded, have been given substance by the alacrity with which the British Concession at Hankow was relinquished and the readiness with which negotiations for the return of the Tientsin Concession were undertaken.
I wrote you last on the day Marshal Chang Tso-lin assumed office as Dictator. His first move was a declaration of adherence to the San Min principles, a statement of lifelong friendship with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and the inauguration of a campaign to clear out Communism. Seventy-five students have been arrested for radicalism, suspected of distributing Soviet propaganda. The chief of police has pasted placards cautioning women and girls to appear in public in modest attire — bobbed hair is forbidden, sleeves and trousers must reach to wrist and ankle. Amah has just read with excitement the news that the police have arrested a girl today in Central Park who wore elbow sleeves.
The street sellers now confine their cries to the advertisement of their wares. A hot-cake man below my study window is shouting, ‘Freshbaked dough for henpecked husbands.’ There has been no lessening in taxes, but there is a general lessening in apprehension on the part of the people. Dictator Chang Tso-lin has announced that he will use his salary to relieve the poor. Wu, the fan-maker, tells me that he has bought six months’ supplies and is again employing his full staff of workers. He is confident of six months of peace. He says the future beyond is ‘a mirror with the face to the wall.’
The Chinese press is to-day filled with conjecture as to the next move of Tupan Yen Hsi-shan, of Shansi, who failed to respond to Marshal Chang Tso-lin’s telegram of query regarding the wisdom of assuming the dictatorship. A man who has just come from Tianyuanfu says that delegates from Feng Yu-hsiang, Chiang Kai-shek, two American publicists attached to the Hankow government, and a representative from Chang Tso-lin are all at the Shansi hotel hoping each to influence him to throw his strength with his particular party. The blue-andwhite flags of the South float peacefully with the five-barred flags of the North on the Shansi border, while the soldiers fraternize with each other and with the villagers.
I visited at the home of Yen Hsishan, in Shansi, seven years ago. He is a native of the province, born there in 1882, and attended college in Japan. He raised a local army and was a leader in the revolution of 1911, distinguishing himself by being the first general to propose the disbandment of troops to curtail expenses. He set an example by sending 30,000 of his men back to their farms and workshops. He has been tupan since 1916.
I remember thinking him very like many thrifty Quaker farmers we know. He had a solid, substantial appearance and carried himself with an unassuming self-respect. He talked principally of building barns, the breeding of draft horses, and the rotation of crops. He seemed to regret the presence of neighboring war lords who made necessary the maintenance of a standing army to protect his province, and had a project for the distribution of imported seed wheat to the farmers. His household was old-fashioned, clean, and without display.

Seventh Month 22, ’27
A Chinese friend has warned me against the use of names, even in letters. She gave me the sad instance of one of her relatives who wrote of conditions in his city and has died in prison for the offense. A member of the American consular service told me that they now employ naval couriers, in all territory under the Nationalists, because of the censorship.
I have seen a Chinese girl, one of the blithest members of the Kuomintang when I was in Canton, who has just come away from Hankow a broken nervous wreck. She says that all the young idealists followed the movement to Hankow, by special invitation. She worked at the designing of colored posters, as she had done in Canton, and was not much interested in the subject so long as she could use plenty of color. In the beginning she was happy, because she was young and able to use her talent and at the same time further a national cause. She liked to see her posters pasted on the walls and think of them spread through many villages. One day she was distressed by continued cries of pain and asked aloud what it could be. Her friend, who worked near her, stopped her queries by popping a hand over her mouth and making a funny joke. When they were in private she explained that she feared the cries were the screams of victims tortured in prison. Day after day the cries continued, and young Chinese men and women began to talk quietly among themselves. The rumor spread that the adviser Petroff, assisted by a pock-marked Chinese, Chien, had instituted a house of torture to force merchants to give up their money to the government.
A much-liked Chinese disappeared and word leaked out that he had been dropped into the river with stones tied about him. Groups of idealists huddled together and discussed the situation. Young Chinese men formed a secret society to assassinate Mr. Borodin and free the Kuomintang from Russian influence. Foreigners were gone, and with them their restraining influence. A reign of terror set in. Coolies out of work roamed the streets, looting and behaving in frightening ways.
The girl became ill and friends got her away. She still believes that the right must eventually conquer, and young China must find her leadership among her own nationals — not turn again to advisers from another land.
General Nan Kuei-hsin arrived in Peking on Saturday afternoon to lay before Chang Tso-lin proposals from Tupan Yen Hsi-shan for a national truce between all Chinese military factions, to rid the country of Russian interference and Communism. The following day Ho Cheng, a personal friend of General Chiang Kai-shek, arrived and was closeted with them. At the end it was given out that a grave menace is ‘eating at the stomach of China’ and that all men must unite to exterminate it.

On Monday, General Sun Chuanfang hurried up from Shantung and announced his opposition to a cessation of the Southern drive just when he has made arrangements to pay a quarter of a million dollars monthly to a ‘White’ Russian general for competent soldiers with whom to recapture Nanking and Shanghai. He cautioned Chang Tsolin against trusting Chiang Kai-shek, who he says is in league with General Feng Yu-shiang, whose confederacy with the Russians was exposed by the documents seized in the raid in Peking. Dictator Chang has expressed himself as strongly against the buying of ‘White’ Russian soldiers, which can only complicate an already complicated situation.
In the meantime General Feng has been shouting, ‘Down with the Reds!’ Mr. Borodin and his party have gone into retirement at Kuling, and are living uninvited in the houses of Westerners.
The Chinese press is filled with the record of innumerable suicides, who leave statements that they die because of sorrow for their country.
The Lama priests have begun a sixty-day period of prayer to Heaven for peace.