March 22.
Amoxcst the multitude of conflicting telegrams from the, various seats of war, announcing victories that have not, taken place and defeats never' inflicted on the enemy, there is one item of news that rivets our attention. We have seen several references to the "Red Spears" in Honan, These, it seems, are villagers who, tired of being plundered and harried like so many silly sheep, have banded themselves together for self-defence, Their weapons are such ready-to-hand implements as can be hastily extemporized by the village blacksmith, The most common is a rough spearhead fixed on the end of @ pole which, for luck's sake, adorned with a red tassel. In most eases, even such rude equipment as' this, has been sufficient to deter the cowardly bandits that infect Honan from attacking villages so defended.
The band—sprang into} existence because of the change of tactics by the bandit pest. In the earlier days of thei activity they acted on Robin Hood's. principle and plundered the rich but protected the poor. For this season the poor were their friends and, on occasion, gave them warning of the approach of their enemies, But the result of their long continued depredations is that there are few rich men left in Honan, The fortunate have fled to safer places and the unfortunate have been fleeced bone-bare, The robbers, therefore, are reduced to taking any they can lay hands on to hold for ransom, When the captives are mustered, after the raid, it frequently happens that some of them are so poor that nothing to be expected from hold ing them in captivity and those may be shot out of hand. If the captor is more merciful, he may snip a piece out of his captive's ear so that he will be known for a poor man and a bad "flesh ticket" next time his village is attacked. Girls, too, are now eagerly seized) and carried off and these are not! held to ransom.
They are sold) 4s wives or concubines to those that can afford to pay for them or reserved for a worse fate and ultimately supply the brothels in Hankow or adjacent cities. These are the circumstances under which the Red Spears have organized, themselves for the defence of all that' a man holds dear. There are few who will not many of these men among-his troops which, from a military] standpoint was a very good thing to do, but, on the other hand, to train up a body of men to the use of arms may be very like nurturing a tame tiger; he is still a savage under the skin.
The Red Spears are said to have captured and killed Yueh Wei-chun, the former Tupan of Honan, but of this there is no certain proof. All that we can with safety. infer from the rumour is that if the former \Governor did fall, or has fallen, into the hands of these egulays he has little to hope for from them.
A still morea [likely story is that the Shen: troops, who surrendered under Promise of a safe conduct at Hsinyangchow, had to be evacuated south through Hankow and were not able to take the straight road home, up_ the Han river, to Shensi. They had to. make this detour of Several hundred miles to escape the vengeance of the Red Spears for the atrocities they committed while holding the beleaguered city. It shows an advance in hose ideas of the inviolabi lof a promise given to a defeat enemy that Wu Pei-fu went to very great trouble and expense \to guard the lives of men whose crimes richly deserved the worst that could have happened to them. If a tithe of the tales told of their treatment of the inhabitants of Hsinyangchow is true, they are inhuman brutes for whom the hangman's rope waurd be too light a punish. ment.
And so. this is China, and down here in Shanghai the price of vice is soaring every day. Wages may be increased but they will have to go up rapidly to keep pace with the ever increasing cost of living. All through the provinces of Honan and Chihli towns are destroyed, homes ravished, crops: trampled down. The farmer's animals are taken for military' transport and the fields consequently, left untilled.
The farmer himself is pressed, either into the ranks as a soldier, of compelled to shoulder a _pole and carry baggage while his fields lie untilled and the vest unreaped. And the extraterritoriality and Indemnity commissions are awaiting a favourable time to walk through the land and see how ready' it is for the acquisition of the same sovereign rights over' foreigners lives as it now exercises over those of its own people.
rely there was never]
better time than this for the investigation and no better! province than Honan to begin wish them well in their endeavour to cope with one of the foulest evils that ever
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.