One of the most remarkable manifestations of advancing power on the part of the Chinese won ian comes from Canton. According to one report the city suffers under the depredations of three notorious. gangs, the "Black Handkerchief," "White Towel" and "Butterfly," and not only are they suspected of widespread highway robbery, but there is a belief that they -kidnap girls and sell them into slavery. The danger arising from the operations of these societies is that they work in no crude manner; rather is it thought that they lure their victims to tragedy by persuading them to the theatre or other place of entertainment. Having cstablished so much, a counter-society sets to work, the latter being composed of women who hare adopted the title of the "Shovel Squad." According to reports in the Cantonese press they are "experienced, and skilled in the native art of self-defence as well as educated in book-learning; they are not helpless girls easily susceptible to fine dinners and joy rides offered by young men." Apparently when a Butterfly or Black Handkerchief comes along searching for victims he may now run the risk of catching a ye Tartaric female, one that wi break his self-respect up very badly. When these full fledged villains have something particularly tough upon their hands, one can imagine that the dismay engendered would be enough to compel reforni, more particularly if she put a half-nelson across him, besides murmuring a few sweet nothings from Huxley or Darwi There ought to be a rapid decrease in crime in the southern capital when this society is really in working order.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.