Thanks For Relief

If Hankow, nearly 600 miles up the muddy Yangtze River, is the Chicago of China, then round-faced youthful General Yeh Peng, Garrison Commander of the Wuhan cities (Hankow, Hanyang, Wuchang) is the Chinese Chicago's boss. But General Yeh Peng is a far more admirable character than many of the unofficial lords of Chicago. Only a little while ago he was presented with a silver-plated eagle on a globe for persuading 200 cadets and members of his staff to join the Chinese Y. M. C. A. and contribute $2,000. Only a little while before that he was operated on for hemorrhoids by Hankow's skillful Scottish surgeon, Dr. Alexander Skinner.

Gratitude is one of the virtues General Yeh Peng admires most. Dr. Skinner's offices are in the riverfront building of Asiatic Petroleum Co., and to that building went a military procession, including a 50-piece brass band and a car bearing officers of General Yeh Peng's staff. Attached to the hood of the car was a white banner five feet wide, blazoned with characters big as a man's head that every literate Chinese could read:

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DR. ALEXANDER SKINNER THE GRATITUDE OF UNWORTHY GEN. YEH PENG FOR BEING CURED OF PILES IS DEEP SEATED AND ETERNAL.

Off the Bund, the British cruiser Capetown lay at anchor, with a private telephone cable running ashore. At retreat, night after night, Chinese ashore had heard the ship's band playing the Capetown's special quickstep, and it was that same march that the Chinese band of grateful General Yeh Peng blared through the corridors of Asiatic Petroleum Co. while his officers, bearing their banner with its strange device, tramped onward.

Aboard the Capetown a short-sighted watch officer spied the khaki-uniformed soldiers clustered about the building door, quickly reported to his commander. Leaping to the telephone, Captain Budgen called Manager Raeburn of Asiatic Petroleum to ask:

"Who is attacking, and do you need help? Shall I send a landing party?"

The call was transferred to the office of Surgeon Skinner who explained, delicately, that General Yeh Peng had come to thank him for professional services.

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