Mr. Larsen spoke next and said:
In giving a brief review of the brigand situation in Honan it is impossible to enter into details and tell about the scores of bands which have been terrorizing nearly all parts of the province, devastate ing the country, burning and looting villages, market towns asd even some cities, extorting money by torture, raping women and holding men and women for ransom, The details of this story would fill volumes. We can only attempt to tell about the much more far-reaching activities of the larger bands whose doings far overshadow those of the once notorious "'White Wolf." These bands are going about the country looting city after city, interfering with foreign trade, bing mission stations, carrying off French, British and American nationals, among them even little children, dragging. them from place to place and oven placing them in the firing line, when, as sometimes happens, there is an. en-ement between brigands and soldiers. a The prelude to these activities was the looting and burning of the city of Lushan. in western Honan towards the end of May. The Norwegian Lutheran mission has a {station here. The station was looted and burned and the lives of the missionaries threatened. The missionaries tell harrowing tales of what they had to go through at the time. Nevertheless the brigands at this time were more humane than they have been. of late. One unmarried woman missionary was carried off and separated from the others for a few days but she was }soon releasd. Lushan is less than 75 miles from Loyang, the headquarters of General Ww Pei-fu.
Towards the end of August two French engineers in the service of the Lunghai Railway were carried of. Shameful indignities were inflicted on, the little daughter of one of them when she attempted to step.in between her father and the bandits. This took place at Shanchow, not a hundred miles west of Loyang, the headquarters of General Wu Pei-fu The French engineers have since been dragged about by the bandits and were last heard of at Sihsien about a week ago.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.