To the Editor of the Nourn-Cruxa Datry New:
Sim,—Apropos of a paragraph in your issue of the 2nd instant, I would beg leave tooffer afew remarks. Itstated that at the Mixed Court on the previous day a China-mun was brought up changed with assault a foreigner. "At the request of the complainant the prisoner was sent to the French Mixed Court to receive sentence.
Beyond this know no particulars but it would be interesting to know what provucation the Chinaman received if any. My experience of the Chinese is somewhat extensive and barring mobs and rowdy eddiers, wiprotoked personal assaults on foreigners I tind are rare and when such cly occur, a presumption is created that there was considerable fault on the othe side, However as I said just now, I know nothing of the particulars of the case referred to, and for aught I know the foreigner may have been entirely in the right and the Chinaman entirely in the wrong But a case of an opposite kind recently came under my notice, where a foreigner assaulted " Japanese (child), and on board a jupanese mail steamer. 'I happened to be coming from Japan to Shanghai when in consequence of a typhoon we anchored near one of the outlying ishnds. Whilst there we were visited by some of the natives whom the captain kindly allowed to come on board to see the ship, naturally a great treat in such an unfrequented place. They were abarticularly quiet, gentle people, some of them quite shy, and indeed all who have travelled in the country in Japan know how truly courteous, kind and hospitable the peasantry are.
Well une of the European anloon passenrs ordered a deer, which was brought on Doard and laid at the side of the deck where there was a group of natives and others. I was standing w few yards off when I was startled by the sound of a tremendous slap or blow, and turning sharp round I went up to the group to ascertain the cause. little boy of 7 or 8 years who was leaning up against his mother with a dazed express sion), had stooped down and begun to stroke the deer, which has been reared in his father's home and is tame, but coming behind ithe startled it, whereupon he (point ing to the passenger) struck the child that blow. Ineversaw a more cowardly act;" an officer of this ship and on the ship, he'd or words to that effect, "and if I weren't
have got something he'd have remembered." On hearing this I went up to the individual in question and told him he had no right to strike the Japanese and he ought to be ashamed of himself for striking a harmless child.
He replied that he allowed no one to criticise his actions and that he would do it again if he chose, whereupon I reported the oatter to the Captain.
One would have supposed that even thus far he had given evidence of a rather bad disposition, but not content with what he had already done, (and as if to add insult to injury), he went to the Captain to get his permission to order off these poor people from the ship, which the Captain prompt refused, asking him how he would have felt if one of the bystanders had put six inches of steel into him. And yet not satisfied, T heard from another source that to justify himself he represented that the child had poked up the deer, which the officer standing by told me was absolutely false. Im: the child and " Jupanese tormenting " pet the last thing before parting with it!
Being extremely irate against. me for having reported the matter he tried to make capital out of my not having been an eye-witness, but, as I said, if I didn't happen to be exactly an eye-witness, I was very much an ear-witness and the officer was an eye-witness.
Setting aside the question of cowardliness and injustice, if the ivur of people gets themselves into trouble, why that is rather a good thing as it may lead to improvement, but when such acts of wanton violence may entail unpleasant consequences to those who come after, then the matter assumes a different aspect.
Tt is well known that, many of the outrages in the South Sea Islands which have lad to be so severely punished were merely the outcome of the spirit of revenge for acts of violence previously perpetrated by one or two unscrupulous Eurupeans.
But it does seem hard that foreigners generally should run the chance of havi a bad name in out-of-the-way places simply because of the wanton violence of indi als. The Goto islands are rugged and exposed, the Japanese most justly have the character for showing extreme kindness to shipwrecked people as instance after instance might be quoted to prove, but might not such an act as this alter matters? Yours truly, Sept.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.