General Pao has been away from here for several weeks now, first at Kaifeng and lately at Nanyang fighting robbers. He returned here on February 20 from Kaifeng and left for Nanyang next day. His return was not very propitious for robbers who had been captured and were here awaiting disposal, for 17 were shot in one batch outside the west gate. The country in the Yiicheng-Shantung border district is freer from robbers just now than it has been for some time, for the country people are forming Red and White-Taft Spear Societies and the robbers are afraid of them. The Red-Tuft or White refers to the colour of the tuft of horsehair attached to the heads of the spears.
These societies although doing good for the time being in suppressing and scattering the robbers, in themselves probably constitute a menace to the future peace of the district, smog like the old Righteous Fist and Big Sword Societies they go through rites to make themselves invulnerable against bullets. Fortunately for them the robbers also believe this superstition and seatter for safety when they hear the White-Tuft Spears are coming.
If one of the latter is unfortunate enough to stop a bullet in a vita} part it is of course, because his faith was not perfect, if he does not get hit or is hit only slightly, why then thit is all to the met of the magic rites. I saw a small band of these White-Tuft Spears bringing in a couple of prisoners the other day and they seemed very proud of their capture, the most unconcerned of the crowd being the two prisoners.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.