Cholera, Cables, Pianos

Into Shanghai's foreign settlements from the war-torn countryside nearly a million and a half panic-stricken Chinese refugees had surged by last week, some with cholera, some with expected smallpox and all with ravenous stomachs. "They constitute a menace to the safety of Shanghai on a par with the menace of the war itself. . . . God alone knows what will happen!" groaned International Settlement Municipal Councilman W. H. Plant. "The public little realizes the dangers Shanghai is facing. . . . These 1,500,000 people are evidently going to remain indefinitely. Food riots, epidemics and disease seem certain."

Still the only U. S. citizen to come down with cholera in Shanghai was H. A. Ferguson of Buffalo. No cholera statistics were available from Chinese sections of Shanghai but in the French Concession alone there were 450 cases, with cholera-afflicted foreigners observed to succumb more rapidly than Chinese. Japanese authorities admitted 200 of their soldiers were down with cholera at Paoshan, and the Chicago Daily News's unsensational Reginald Sweetland cabled: "Swarms of cholera flies stream into homes, restaurants and offices, and [Shanghai] health officials feel that only a sudden change of weather with heavy showers and lower temperatures can avert a major epidemic." Latest news was that 50 people per day were dying of cholera in Shanghai.

P: Shanghai cable companies, figuring they have lost several hundred thousand dollars' worth of business during the 15 clays their lines have been cut, spent $19,500 on a daring tugboat expedition which laid 26 mi. of cable and restored service last week. Three days later something or somebody cut the cables again and Shanghai dispatches once more went exclusively by radio.

P: With time to prowl around Shanghai's famed new Municipal Centre on which Chinese have spent $8,000,000 (or 20,000,000 Chinese dollars), correspondents last week found the $225,000 Administration Building gutted as a result of 13 shells efficiently hurled through its green and yellow tiled roof by Japanese warships. Mere smoking debris was the Centre's $90,000 museum and burned was the $1,500,000 Jukong Municipal Wharf completed only a few months ago.

P: Japanese complained in Shanghai last week that U. S. and British firms, such as insurance companies, are making a "racket" out of mortgaging Chinese plants and properties so that these can hoist the Stars & Stripes or the Union Jack. Such flags, at latest reports, seemed to have saved considerable Chinese property from Japanese bombs, but tempers were fraying. Meanwhile U. S. Marines joined forces with British police and soldiers to break up a riot by 1,000 native workers striking in the International Settlement at the Chinese Fou Foong Flour Mill. Since it is within 20 yards of the Sino-Japanese battle sector, just across Soochow Creek, the mill hands demanded a month's salary in advance for working in such dangerous quarters, subsided after 25 strikers were admitted to hospitals "suffering from scalp wounds and tear gas."

P: The British Sassoon interests last week proceeded to reopen their swank 18-story Cathay Hotel, damaged originally by some of the first bombing at Shanghai (TIME, Aug. 23). "Our Tower Club will also reopen," announced the Cathay, "as soon as there is no danger that the lights on the ninth floor might draw Chinese or Japanese shellfire." Disgruntled employes of the 23-story Park Hotel, who had been told "business is so bad your pay has been cut 50%," retaliated by spilling a large can of alcohol strategically about the premises, igniting it to set the hotel afire. Forehanded, the American mediator on behalf of the Park Hotel had already called Shanghai firemen, soon announced with his blandest boniface smile: "Damage was negligible."

P: Some bumptious U. S. refugees, on learning that U. S. armed forces in Shanghai would make all practicable efforts to get their belongings safely away to the Philippines, promptly made curious demands. Two excited musicians shrilled that Marines must rescue their band instruments from the war zone. Cried a florid female: "I just want some sailors to get my valuable fur coat out of storage!" After good-natured leathernecks and gobs had complied with many such requests, a refugee asked to have his piano rescued and shipped to Manila, was refused. One of the men cracked, "Yes. we have no pianos!"

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