When the Manchus got out and! it was freely said that we would be elected by the free will of the people over whom we ruled officialdom seemed to be an actual paradise. -Unfortunately such elections' were never held and we were appointed still by, presidential mandate. In the next place there was distinct loss in prestige and the people who formerly gave officials the greatest respect became negligent and sometimes insolent. We readily excused these manifestations as belonging to a transitory period, but things grew steadily worse with the rise of the soldier to power. I have told you before of my losses at their hands.
When it comes, then, to the subject of domination IT can speak from grim experience. The Manchus dominated us, but if we managed to get our full tax quota sent in in good time we were rarely bothered from above, But the domination of our own soldiers Voth cruel and ineseapa>le. Neither our property, our lives nor our women were safe from their depredations and I decided to the rest of my days under foreign rule. In Shanghai T enjoy the' Preatest peace and security I have known."
But Grandfather, does it not you indignant to see these Sikh police and Chinere hirelings Handle the poor people on our directs xo roughly? You were with us the other day wher that foreign inspector took off two men by their collars, when "they were only taving a wordy dispute."
Foreign Police in Fact Lao Goo smoked on for while and then said thoughtfully, "I have seen too many heads cut off by Chinese soldiers, too many pect people shot thvough with army rifles, too mary outraged women, to get very mich wrought up by the sight of an officer simply Jerking a men siong by his collar The "ficer cla look" foriaidable and doubtless: men in his clutch were panies stricken, but they will get may be a five-dollar fine tne "Mixed Court to-morrow morning. What man geta out of a Chinese goal" for five dollars?
"Furthermore what became of that same officer? A few nights ago there was an attempted burglary of your father's business offices. This sume foreign officer was on patrol duty that night and ran into the gang just as they had succeeded in making an entrance. He put them to flight, shot one and was shot and badly wounded himself. He gets nothing from your father, whose business he has saved and, if he gets well, will be back on the same dangerous Job again, with no increase of pay. And"—the old man waxed sarcastic on will be ready to bring charges against him for jerking a coolie along by the collar,"
The young man did not ply.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.