post office is about to open a branch there. Instead of the heated denunciation that such 'invasions of the interior' would have called forth had the perpetrators been Britons or other foreigners, the native papers record that the police received strict orders to watch over these enterprising persons, and laud the activity of the islanders in business."[1] Seven large Japanese firms are doing business in the city; three large new steamers are about to be put on the Yang-tsze by the Nippon Yusen Kwaisha,[2] the largest shipping company in Japan; of an estimated foreign population of 2500, it is said that 1000 are Japanese; and the Japanese concession, which has lain fallow for ten years, is now being taken vigorously in hand. Hankow, indeed, presents an admirable example of the prosecution of the rapidly growing ambitions and aspirations which are so conspicuous a feature of new Japan.
It would be impossible to leave Hankow
