The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-17
CHINA RAISING VAST FUND FOR
 DEFENSE PLANS
Coins and Jewelry Shower Stage At Meeting To
 Boost Project.

Peking, Sept. 17.-China's Patriotic Defense Fund. or Salvation Fund. has
 grown out of a movement which shows
 the middle class Chinese are acquiring national spirit. a spirit foreigners living in China have believed to be almost wholly kicking
 |s Great fervor has been shown at
 meetings held in various parts of
 China. to raise money for this new fund originated by obscure Chinese of the merchant class, without suSges- tion from government officials At one meeting in F'uchiatien over
 $14 000 was raised from a mixed crowd Women and schoolboys were among
 the speakers who stirred the audience
 to such a pitch thatlt the stage of the
 theatre was showered with coins, rings, bracelets and other ornaments 1bf gold and silver. One young stu, dent dramatically concluded his ap- peal by slashing his wrist and writing
 upon a piece of paper with his blood the slogan, China Must be Saved
 He. threw this into the audience, which
 passed it about with loud acclaim.
 Enthusiastic meetings at Tientsin called forth a protest rom the Japan ese consul general to the governor of
 the province of Cshih1i. The Japanese
 official declared the meetings were ur- friendly to Japan and imposed fines
 upon Chinese merchants in the Japan csc concession who contributed tp the fund.
 while Chinese officials have issued decrees warning the originators of Patriotic Fund meetings not to permit speakers to denounce Japan and dis cuss the recent Japanese demands, the iidea of the organization developed in the heat of the threatened crisis be- tween Japan and China, and no gov ernmentaI suggestion can free the pa | fr.iaf 0l1 ll- feeling against Japan.
 It has been variouSly suggested that the patriotic fund be used for the en- l largenent of the navy, for the army, and for the extension of industries l which will enable China so subslst on her own manufactured products 1 The patriotic fund, the boycott on IJapanese goods and homer made goods
 movement are inseparably connected in the Chinese mind. Chinese papers
 abound in editorials discussing the l three subjects uppermost in the 1 thought of the public. The news col
 unns are mentioned, or at least @hinted
 at in such a way as to show Chinese
 contempt for Japanese methods. 1 Picking. papers almost every day contain at least half a dozen al1usions
 to the friction between China and Ja- pan. One item sets forth the an
 nouncement that Chinese living in
 Bangkok, Siam, where only Japanese naIcneS can be bought, Will not IOuSIl a match 'tand for want of other
 matches 8 great army in Bangkok l have gone back to the <old-time flint and steel, while many orders have been placed for European matches. 1 A despatch from Tunghua, in Man churia, tells of the disarrangenent of all lines of communication by torren- tial rains and consequent activity of
 "tufei'' or bandits. The item concludes l there are. strong reasons to suspect that the nationals of certain power
 are encouraging this activity of tufet- Announcement is made of the. dis covery by Chinese cuctonns officials at Antung of explosives hidden in a Jap
 anese fishing boat and the later detec- i tion of percussion cars, fuses and ex- l plosives concealed in Japanese res taurant at Antung. The news para
 graps ends: "In view of the above, the
 public can draw it's own conclusions
 as to the real owner of the bomb ex- ploded in The Japanese Medicine Shop at Mukden.'' The Mukden incident, which occurred several weeks ago has | caused much comment as the Japanese authorities charged several Chinese
 students with responsibility for the explosion and the young men are un-
 der arrest The case is far more than local in it's interest and is now being
 discussed by the Chinese Foreign of flee and the Japanese Minister in Pek- i ing.
 1 Another item tells of a protest Jap