CO129-590-24 Situation in Hong Kong 25-4-1905 - 25-4-1905 — Page 104

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for me as a member of my own family might have done. him the next day, to thank him; he was as happy about it as I WAS. zossibly he was relieved to be rid of one more responsibility. He was notĝall pleased at losing my husband under such tragic circumstances, although certainly the blame could not be laid at his door. He had done everything possible for both of us. And his efforts in my case had been successful. I think that was his attitude towards all cases

is the same, he is bitterly ashamed of the behavior of the Army and the Gendarmerie, which brings so much odium on the Japanese people, withough he is far too clever to show it, and much too astute to gross swords with them. He has his own ways of getting things accomplished.

The

Conditions in Hongkong were in some ways improved, in some ways vastly deteriorated during the month of May. place itself had been cleaned up more or less, there were still plenty of ruined buildings particularly in Wanchai, and lampposts were still lying on the streets in the Central District, they were never removed, for some unaccountable reason. But the buildings themselves had been cleaned up, the lifts were working in Watson's Building, for the exclusive use of Japanese, Chinese and Indians. It was too entertaining to see the Indians attached to an office of the Japanese on the 2nd Floor of the Watson Building, they sat, as watchmen and messengers, I suppose, on chairs outside the door, by the lift, with their feet on other chairs, Lords of Creation.

It apparently gave them great joy to see the Europeans walking up. Mr. Kelle, the Swiss Consul, kaɖchis office on the 3rd Floor. I have seen him arrive, breathless, more than once, on a fine warm day, Juah treatment made him very angry, although he made a joke of it.

1

Watson's Building had two or three offices established in it. During January, February and early March it was just black desolation, offices looted, papers strewn all over the floors, up and down the staircases, which were used as public conveniences occasionally. This was true of many similar buildings. Most of my affairs were with Mr. Keller in Watson'ı Building, Mr. Gibson in the Prince's Building, and the Bureau of Foreign Affairs. It is hard to appreciate the sensation of bottomless depression one had, feeling one's way up and down those seemingly endless flights. It was six up to Mr. Gibson' rooms, and three up to Mr. Keller' they were so steep that a misstep would have meant a bad fall. It was a relief when they were cleaned up a bit, and the lights on the tunnel like stair- ways turned on. This also put a stop to holdups which took place in many buildings. Holdups were going on all over town, and were usually successful, people were desperate as the money and food situation was getting steadily worse. Restoranteurs where I bought bread and buna constantly complained that they could not get flour. And yet, Japanese troopers were reported to be feeding American Red Cross Cracked Wheat to their horaes in Kowloon, And the Navy was holding a million

pounds of flour at North Point for their own use.

They

Every day I saw streams of handcarts loaded with luggage and bundles of the leas poor Chinese moving through the town, and the ques of the same type of people waiting for medical examinations and passes to leave Hongkong were enormous. usually gathered by Watson's Building, a thousand or more at a time. They all knew that they would be starving if they didn't go, somewhere, anywhere, out of Hongkong. The number of dead bodies still to be seen on the streets were eloquent enough evidence of this. The Japanese put a noties in the daily paper forbidding this undesirable practise. I have a copy of the paper with me, it contains a number of other rules and regulations along the same lines. The one thing the Japanese couldn't do was to get

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