have been for centuries. The largest of the modern ones are Shanghai, Tientsin, Nanking, Hongkong, Canton, Hankow, Peiping—now, temporarily, all in Japanese hands.
In the Chinese cities or towns where you are most likely to be at first, you will be impressed by three things: that the streets are narrow; that they are dirty; and that they are crowded. Chinese cities and towns are old and they were built not for automobiles but for sedan chairs and wheelbarrows and caravans of donkeys and for pedestrians.
The gutters are defective, if there are any gutters, and people often throw water and garbage out of their doors. Modern Chinese cities, of course, have wide streets and good sewers but we are speaking of the places you will probably see most often.
You may be shocked, at first, to see how desperately poor most Chinese are. Their houses and their clothing seem dirty and unkempt. There are mangy and flea-bitten dogs that you had best keep away from. You will see human strays, too, beggars of the most sorrowful sort. Do not give anything to them or you will be besieged. And nowadays there will be others—refugees and homeless poor and war-wounded. For China has suffered terribly. She was, before the war, only just beginning to have modern doctors and hospitals and nurses. War came before she could get
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