Chaos

The Legation Quarter of Peking became an isolated isle of safety last week as the encircling armies of Chinese Super-Tuchuns (super-bandit warlords) stirred the whole region into a frothing sea of civil war. All communication by rail, road or telephone ceased to exist; and only one foreign cable wire was in operation. Throughout the week some thousands of more or less embattled Chinese soldiers in the vicinity of Peking continued respectful, even obliging, toward those foreigners who had occasion to pass through the civil war area.

Political Situation. The consensus of meagre despatches was that the soldiers of Super-Tuchun Feng, who have dominated Peking for 18 months (TIME, Nov. 3, 1924, et. seq.), found themselves quite outmaneuvered, early in the week, by the besieging troops of the Manchurian Super-Tuchun Chang, and those of the Central Chinese Super-Tuchun Wu (TIME, April 19).

General Lu Chunglin, commander of the Feng troops, thereupon tried the old trick of offering to share Peking with Wu, if the latter would abandon Chang. The week passed while these ticklish negotiations were in progress. Late despatches reported that Wu had refused to listen to Lu; and that the latter, having given up hope of holding Peking, was rapidly withdrawing all the Feng armies to their great northern base, Kalgan.

During the week one General Wang Shih Chien, not previously mentioned in despatches, took it upon himself to keep order at Peking with a handful of mercenaries, and generally mediated between the contending factions. Tuan Chi-jui and Tsao Kun, respectively "Chief Executive of China" and "Last President of China," each pretended during the week that he exercised the executive power. Both prudently announced these claims from unstated hiding places at Peking, since neither retained a shred of authority, though Tuan claimed to possess the Government seals.

Scientist Bombed. When two of Chang's airplanes flew over Peking early in the week, dropping bombs at random, their pilots little suspected that one bomb exploded within 20 feet of Roy Chapman Andrews, discoverer of the first dinosaur eggs known to moderns, chief of the American Museum of Natural History's division of Asiatic exploration. Mr. Andrews had wisely leaped beneath a box car when the airplanes soared into view, and was not among the five persons killed (all Chinese). Emerging from his impromptu shelter, he continued to supervise the loading of the car with scientific paraphernalia for his latest Mongolian expedition. The despatches stated that three other U. S. scientists accompany him, made no mention of his Parisian wife, Yvette Borup.

By the Nose. The week's current sensationalism was a report that the Feng troops had captured a band of itinerant Cossacks, had pierced the nose of each, had run a pliant wire through the holes, were leading their prisoners by the nose to Kalgan.