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recall delivering some rations to the British army officers stationed in Maryknoll by army truck when I was a sergeant in the Field Company Engineers, H.K.V.D.C. These army officers were fine men and used to thank me politely.
Many of the articles written by other people in this connection were high flights of the imagination. The articles by the Maryknoll priests, on the other hand, were devoid of either embellishment or rancour. In Nagoya (Japan) p.o.w. camp I was caught eating a stolen potato and for this I was slapped by 4 guards one after the other for 20 minutes, the last using his belt with metal clasp on my face. I fell to the ground repeatedly. From this you will gather I had no love for the Japanese army guards. Nevertheless I harboured no ill will. I recall the Japanese interpreter's words "Lucky you are a prisoner-of-war. If you were a civilian we would shoot you for stealing from poor Japanese farmer."
High praise to your Journal for publishing the Maryknoll account which was like a breeze from the sea-shore as compared with the obnoxious effluvium which characterizes so many reports by other writers.
Sincerely, W. J. Howard
LIBRARY OF THE NORTH CHINA BRANCH,
ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, SHANGHAI
Our Hon. Librarian, Mr. H. A. Rydings, has sent in the following note which will be of great interest to readers of this Journal.
The Shanghai Library (Shanghai tushuguan)
The Shanghai Library, headed by Gu Tinglong, was established in 1952 through the combination of several theretofore separate local libraries, perhaps the most important among them being the Historical Materials Library (Lishi wenxian tushuguan), which previously had been formed from the private collections of several persons (including Zhang Yuanji and Ye Jingkui) and the Zikawei Repository (Xujiahui cangshulou), which now consists of the old Jesuit library of that name, the former collection of the North China ...