no longer hides a diminished head but is waxing strong in the northern part of the province, and during the last week there have been one or two quite big affairs between the foreign troops and the "ma tsai" or mounted robbers of Fengtien. These are the Chinese Rob Roys of our day, outlaws and rustic blackguards who diversity the tedium of tillage by occasionally having a mounted meet to harry a big village or a small township, and to carry off a wealthy yeoman and hold him for ransom. For years they have been very active up beyond Kinchou, some eighty or a hundred miles outside of the Wall, but recently they have ventured to show themselves inside. Major Browning of the 4th P.L. last week led out sixty rifles against them and met them in an entrenched village about thirty miles on this side of Shanhaikuan near Funinghsien. The Major with small Bae the enemy had scouted better than our warty went round to take them on flank,
folk; they opened a hot fire on all sides, dropped Lieut. Stirling with the main body and killed the Major as he was running across the open. One sepoy was shot dead at the same tine and two grievously wounded. Later on these men were reinforced by French and Japanese, and the village was rushed with a very heavy loss (over forty killed) to the brigands. Large forces were then sent out from Shanhaikuan and the country scoured in all directions. The most significant feature of this raid by the brigands is that they dared to come down on the lines of communication of the Allies and were so far south of Shanhaikuan (3) miles.) A year ago they would never have dreamed of such temerity. has also been in evidence, and H.MS. Pique has had quite an exciting time in running down a lot of marine villainy in the Gulf. She chased a whole lot last Wednesday into the shoals south of Shanhaikuan, and then made signals to the military' to take up the pursuit on shore. Our Provisional Government is also doing fine work in this direction, and is carrying on an active campaign against that occult organisation which has battened like a vampire on Tientsin trade for many years and has defied every attempt of the foreign and native authorities to break it up—the River thief-guild. The two magistrates at Chungliangcheng and Tangku have been making it very warm for these gentlemen of late and have captured numbers of them, invariably well armed, in the act of raiding villages. Judgment and- justice have been summary and quite in' harmony with primitive law, a phrase which the sagacious will understand. Some of these villains finding the River bank dangerous, ingeniously transferred themselves to the Bar and under the bows of the men-of-war begun to pirate the sea-going junks. The able German magistrate who acts at Tangku was one to" many for them, however; he got an armed launch and caught them red-handed; persuaded one to turn P. G. evidence against the rest, and then got a large part of the gang on shore. These men had huge store of ammunition amongst their spoil.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.