Shortly after this incident closed Mr. Fulford was promoted to the post of Acting Consul-General at Tientsin. It is usual in North China, when any resident leaves a settlement, for the Chinese and others to let off many crackers, and to gather at the point of departure to wish him a safe and prosperous journey. This is more particularly the case when a resident leaves a locality on promotion to higher office. At Yingkow I have several times seen the railway platform crowded when a European has been going simply on leave, or for a change of air. On the occasion of Mr. Fulford’s departure the only persons present to wish him “Good luck and God speed” were a clerk from his office and myself. I was astonished at this lack of courtesy, but soon I was to meet the Consul again. At this time there were about twenty correspondents at Newchwang, and naturally each of us who had any item of news was jealous of it, and guarded the secret carefully until some hours after it had been cabled away. Both Etzel and myself were aware of a leakage somewhere, but we were unable to discover in what way news we believed to be ours only had proved to be commonly known elsewhere. We adopted every precaution, had the privacy of the telegraph room respected as far as we were able, and Etzel went to two relay stations to investigate conditions there; messages were forwarded from different places, and the usual means adopted to have exclusive news got through to its destination at the earliest possible moment. I have already stated that any Chinese coolie taking a message could be made to show it to a European who offered a sufficient bribe or threatened bobbery, but this does not indicate the general lack of secretiveness amongst the Europeans resident in North China. It is a common practice to send round an “express,” or open letter, by a Chinese carrier, who shows it to any and every European who is minded to read its contents. This possibly has something to do with the general publicity given to all matters in China. It does not account for some of the practices of the Europeans themselves. For instance, in Chifu ship-masters who had undertaken to deliver messages at a given address offered to sell the news these messages contained to news correspondents stationed in that port; men entrusted with messages to wire from within the Great Wall would open them in the presence of correspondents and read aloud the news the other correspondent was dispatching. The whole business was beset with difficulties, and neither belligerent would permit code or cipher messages to be dispatched.