WAR IN CHINA: Fancy Price

Over the sprawling Chinese war front Japanese troops last week continued their advance, shrinking still further the semicircle they have drawn around Hankow, temporary Chinese capital. For every mile gained, however, the Japanese paid a fancy price in blood and munitions. To replace gaps caused by death and sickness, 26,000 Japanese soldiers moved up the Yangtze on transport ships to aid the 180,000 already engaged in the campaign. Most notable temporary Japanese success last week was the cutting of the Hankow-Peking Railway, about 100 miles north of Hankow, by Japanese cavalry which had completed a 200-mile cross-country drive. Last month the Japanese command boasted that Hankow would be taken by October 1. Last week Chinese resistance had so stiffened that few neutral observers believed the city could be occupied before next month, some believed the Chinese could hold out until the year’s end.