New Commissioner of Defence and Transfer of Troops: Robbers Still Unquelled Ichang, Jan. Wl.
Gen. Wang Ju-ching arrived here on January 5 to take up his Post as Commissioner of Defence of the Upper Yangtze, in place of Gdaeral Sun Chuan-fang, who is now somewhere about Nanchang, Kiangsi. - The new Commander-in-Chief has! held command here before, and has been at Kinchow and Shasi for the last two years with i He commands the sth many of them have also been sent forward to the defence stations on the borders of Hupeh and Szechuan.
In spite of all these Generals of high rank, and im spite of all the money they manage to wring out of the country, the district is not at all peaceful. Not long ago, it was reported to the Postmaster that several of his couriers had been beaten while on the way to Ichang with overland' mails from Hankow, and the beatings took place only a few miles out of Ichang itself. Fortunately no mails were missing.
Many troops have boom moving up river to the Patung district, but in spite of that robberies and abduct tions have been taking place near a village called Huang-lin-miao, about 30 miles up river from here. One wealthy man of that place, called Huang, had his house entered and all his goods of value stolen, and then the robbers carried away all the family, and demanded a ransom of 6,000 strings of cash.
Another gang attacked a boat, on which was being transported the coffin of a relative of the Taoyin of Shinan, and carried off everything of value that was on board. There were seven, robbers in. this band, but five of them were captured later.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.