Tomahawk, Rope & Bomb

In swish, rustle and ornate embroidery even the robes of Chinese courtiers to Her Majesty the late, ferocious Dowager Empress (died 1908) were scarcely superior to the gorgeous, brand new robes donned last week in Changchun, capital of the new state of Manchukuo, by splendor-loving Foreign Minister Hsieh Chieh-shih and his swishing, rustling entourage.

Minister Hsieh was all dressed up to go and see the Emperor of Japan, illustrious "Son of Heaven" He had spent the day writing diplomatic notes to President Paul von Hindenburg, Pope Pius XI, King George V, Premier Benito Mussolini and other foreign devils." Each note will be personallydelivered by Manchukuo's new Special Diplomatic Envoy, General Ting Shih-yuan who also had a brand new trousseau last week. On their missions abroad Minister Hsieh and General Ting will speak of a peaceful, orderly, independent Manchukuo over which presides "The Last of the Manchu Emperors," spindly, weak-eyed Henry Pu Yi.

Unfortunately for this idyllic presentation of Japan's puppet state, savage events suddenly began to pop all over Manchukuo last week. One of the most outrageous occurred in Changchun, a few blocks from berobed Minister Hsieh. shortly before he left the Capital.

Changchun Tomahawking. Dining heavily in the Yueh Hai Chung, Changchun's best Chinese hotel, and guarded by Japanese police, sat wealthy Li Yih-sun, smartest political wire-puller in Manchukuo. famed for pulling Heilungkiang Province out from under Governor Chen Shieh-yuan who was ''kicked upstairs" to the rank of Privy Councilor.

Chen, furious at being cheated of the graft he had expected to get as Governor, got out his short, sharp Chinese war hatchet last week. While Li quaffed rice whiskey and quaked at his friends' jokes, Chen in the flowing robes and silk slippers of a Privy Councilor approached noiselessly from the rear. Eyewitnesses saw only a flash of steel, a gush of blood. Quick as a snake's tongue the hatchet had slipped out of the Privy Councilor's voluminous silk sleeve, split Li's head and vanished into the sleeve again. Grave, bland and without a bloodstain showing, Privy Councilor Chen strolled out of the hotel past Japanese police too flabbergasted to arrest him.

Crossing the street to another restaurant Chen ordered a 26-course dinner, ate it slowly and with relish while Japanese found no answer to the question, "Can we arrest a Privy Councilor?"

Murders & Lynching. Meanwhile at Harbin, chief city of northern Manchukuo, four Chinese kidnappers pounced in broad daylight on the three children of C. T. Woodruff, chief accountant for British-American Tobacco Co. Ltd. in Harbin.

Mrs. Woodruff, a British subject, clawed at the kidnappers. They silenced her screams by shooting her dead.

Two unarmed Russians (Harbin harbors some 25,000 White Russians) sprinted after the kidnappers. They again opened fire, badly wounded both Russians.

After all this shooting Harbin police appeared, shot two of the four kidnappers dead, rescued the children, let the other two kidnappers escape. That night white residents of Harbin pounced on a Chinese who looked to them like one of the escaped kidnappers. Choosing a tree beside the public street in which Mrs. Woodruff was killed, they hung the Chinese high in U. S. lynching fashion, then cut him down, cut off his head, placed it in Oriental fashion on the sharpened end of a pole.

Rival Government. Most annoying to Japanese, who claim that the Changchun Government represents ''the spontaneous will of Manchukuo's people,"was the sudden emergence at Manchouli last week of a rival "Government of Manchukuo'' strong enough to hold as hostages 284 Japanese civilians.

Manchouli lies just barely inside Manchukuo on the Soviet border. Meagre despatches told of its triumphant seizure by Chinese soldiers under General Hsu Ping-wen. Report was that he and other Chinese commanders now hold about 400 miles of the strategic Chinese Eastern Railway between Manchouli and Tsitsihar. If they manage to hold on they will obviously dominate Northern Manchukuo, thus destroying the fiction that it is ruled by either Henry Pu Yi or Japan.

Stars & Stripes. Japanese troops were too busy in Eastern Manchukuo last week to try to recapture Northern Manchukuo from its new Chinese masters.

Eastern Manchukuo lies between Changchun and Korea (which Japan annexed in 1910). Reluctantly last week the Japanese General Staff admitted that Eastern Manchukuo swarms with Chinese and Korean patriots amazingly resolved to fight the well-armed Japanese conquerors--with bare hands if necessary.

Typical of scores of bloody skirmishes last week was a sudden, swooping attack by Japanese cavalry on 500 Chinese armed with scythes, knives and other farm implements near Hailung. Charging in Cossack formation the Japanese cut and shot down 46 Chinese, lost only one man themselves. But the remaining Chinese scattered, prepared to fight again. In another nearby skirmish Japanese infantry, attacked by 1,000 Chinese, killed 260, suffering only "negligible casualties."

Next day Japanese bombing planes dropped a shower of leaflets and some bombs where they would do the most good in Eastern Manchukuo. By accident, the Japanese admitted, "one bomb was dropped in an American missionary compound but no Americans were even wounded." Genuinely anxious that such an accident shall not happen again, Japanese authorities requested all U. S. missions in Eastern Manchukuo to be scrupulous about flying the Stars & Stripes.

Bounties for Heads. One festive day last September champagne toasts were drunk to Manchukuo by Puppet Henry Pu Yi and Puppeteer General Muto, Japan's Commander-in-Chief and Special Ambassador to the new State Last week Chinese leaflets appeared in Mukden, General Muto's war base, offering a "bounty" of $6.500 gold for Toaster Muto's severed head.

Possibly spurious, the leaflets were offered by a Japanese spokesman as ''moral evidence" against Chinese. If taken at face value, the leaflets offered a further bounty of $4.500 gold for the head of any one of Henry Pu Yi's ministers and a general bounty of $225 gold per set of ten Japanese heads. The head of Puppet Henry Pu Yi himself was apparently considered worthless, no bounty for it being offered.

*Chinese use the expression "foreign devil" with or without meaning disrespect, depending on the inflection.

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