Peking, July 23.
An interesting story of bad faith among thieves was published today -by the "Uh'en Fae," and because it gives an account vi the wounding of the notorious Lao Yang-jen, who kidnapped the missionaries and engineers in southern Honan"tast Autumn, it is worth retelling.
Lao Yang-jen, now a com mander of Honan provincial ticops, whose real name is Chang Kuo-wei, has been quartered, with his soldier-bandit following, in the Yungch'eng district, but both he and his brother, Chang Kuo-hsin, have been showing!some anxiety to get into action and are said to have prevailed upon Wu Pei-fu to send them and their band into Szechuan. This story, which naturally delighted the rustic population of the Yungch'eng district, spread through the country rapidly and very shortly came to the ears of another notorious person, the brigand Hsiao Ch'un-tze, whose real name is Hsiao T'ung-sheng. He has been operating for a long time end with a very large following on the frontiers of Honan, Shantung, Anhui, and Kiangsu and was badly "wanted" by the authorities; but he has also cherished ambitions to be a military official and get rich under the law, so when he heard that [ao Yang-jen and_his brother were going.to Szechuan te fight for promotion and loot, he wrote to the brothers asking them to have Wu Pei-fu include him and his following in the expedition.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.