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Show page two ing very heavily. Of course they were most happy to have it over. •.."Concern for mission properties was by no means the only factor that kept our friends right there through the times when it might have been arranged for them to escape with little risk. But certainly the preservation of much personal and mission property has been one of the happy results. Furnishings of the several houses had been much moved about and mixed up, but not much disappeared. The internees themselves were not much robbed of personal effects. ..."The intruders finally entered my Treas. office and helped themselves to the quite limited stock of office supplies and some hardware in cabinet and certain drawers there, but did not destroy ex*- posed files nor records. And they never tried to open either the built-in vault or the quite large iron safe - in each of which there are very valuable records and also articles of no little monetary value - two Shaowu microscopes, office typewriter, adding-machine, some medicines, some cash, certain loose leaf forms, etc. etc, Mr. Neumann stood up to the job of persuading them to respect personal rights remarkably well. He held on to bicycles and some other things that we supposed of course would have disappeared. •••"While nearly everything else was removed from the Hospital, Mr, Neumann maneuvered and persuaded and got them to leave the X-ray intact. It is old and not too good any more, but suffered hardly at all from the invasion. Our friends, being right there, when the. Japanese left, were able to begin combing the town for properties at once - ep. the hospital furnishings - that had been borrowed hither and yon for their various hospital or other uses. By the. time I came away Fri. noon we had got back more than 100 hospital beds, quite a number of desks, tables and chairs, and other odds and ends. It was uncertain whether much more could be found. There is little hope of getting back any such articles as mattresses, bedding, hospital clothing, laboratory equipment or medical supplies. These are heavy losses, of course. But the staff are going right to work at replacements so as to begin at least OPD work with the least possible delay and IPD soon after. The fine big hospital building is but little damaged. "The members of the Foochow group are generous in praise of one another throughout the prolonged ordeal. But Dr. Dyer seems singled out for special praise for her level-headed leadership. She stands high in my esteem. I wish she could have a real let-up now and a rest, but do not see her planning any for herself. If the way can open before too long for Dr. Jarvis to reach here she can then turn over some responsibility. "I have just now bought bus ticket to Kienyang for tomorrow morning. A telegram was here for me when I returned Sun., from International Relief Com., Chungking requesting me to "kindly consent" to audit certain student relief accounts at Kienyang for them. I cannot well spare the time for it, but want to show co-operation as far as possible. I think it cannot be more than a small undertaking, so hope to accomplish it tomorrow afternoon and return here next day. I have been hoping to get round to move to Foochow Sat., but think now I'll not make it until Monday. "At opening of my letter I remarked that I might go back a bit later to pick up threads. When a nurse who was to go to our Yungtai Hospital to work, and I, left here by launch the morning of the 18th we had not yet learned that Foochow had finally been evacuated just the evening before. We learned it on the launch and at the river ports along the way - rejoicing everywhere. But we went forward on our route as planned. With a 15 li walk from Mintsing city, after landing there, we spent our first night with Mr. Billing and |
