The Taihu Lake pirates apparen™ ly are as bold and as active as ever and all attempts on the part of the authorities to suppress them have 0 far proved unavailing. The gangs are more elusive than ever One day they are reported in certain place and the next, they are miles away.
Over 800 of the marauders, with a score of junks at-their disposal, are: reported to have looted Kuo Hong, a village near Soochow, and burnt down many houses, in addition to which they carried off a number of captives. "Upon return-jing to their lair, it is said, they wrote letters to' the village headmn, and to. those of other villages on the Kiangsu-Chekiang border, demanding a "loan" from each of them of $80,000 and a contribution of 30 rifles' and they threatened to loot and burn every village if the demande were notcompio with immediately.
Companies of. jand and water police, supported by regular troops. were sent from Soochow to engage the gangsters but, though they made
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