Also there is a Mrs. Jones, living in Heatherbell Villas, Deepdeen Road, Peckham Rye. This good lady regales her visitors with extracts from her daughter’s letters, the daughter being in China. The latest extract from Mrs. Jones’ daughter reads as follows:— “It is so difficult to understand the Chinese, but dear George is so hopeful. So far we have made no converts, but the captain of a junk, who seems to wish to learn ‘The Truth,’ has supplied me with such a nice young Chinese girl as a servant, and we already have great hopes of leading her from darkness. Her Chinese ideas are very funny. She has mended my stockings with patches of orange-peel and has sewn black boot buttons all round the bottoms of George’s white duck trousers. Her wages are small, and we pay them monthly to Man Yuen, her uncle. Her name is ‘Hoo,’ and although her carelessness has nearly caused the mission-house to be burnt down on three separate occasions, we can’t help loving her, and George will receive her into the ‘Church’ as soon as she shows a desire for true knowledge.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ KWA NIU’S DERBY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ KWA NIU’S DERBY YOU know Shelford? What! Don’t know Shelford of the Customs? Then you’ve never heard how he won the Ping Tu Derby. Shelford, as I said, was in the Customs, and fate made him spend many years in the port of Ping Tu. You probably won’t find Ping Tu on the map, but, then, maps of China are often inaccurate, and the varieties of European spelling adopted by cartographers have led to confusion. Anyway Ping Tu is a not unimportant town. The river is navigable above it for some fifty miles, and Shelford was the head representative in that community of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. In addition to this he probably knew more about the Chinese than any other European in the neighbourhood, and was moreover an all-round sportsman. There were many sportsmen in Ping Tu, or, rather, everyone of the small community was entitled to style himself so. They possessed a club on the river bank where cocktails and whiskies and sodas were consumed, billiards and bowls could be indulged in, and, moreover, where ladies could entertain and be entertained on the verandah between the hours of three and seven in the afternoon. Ping Tu, in addition, possessed a golf-links and a racecourse, and of the racecourse and Kwa Niu’s memorable Derby I will tell.