rox Ocn Own Cortesroxpent Peking, Apr. 29.
Some little-known facts about the: Chinese Labour Corps have been vealed by Dr. W. H. Graham JAspland, medical officer at the Brit-fish Legation, who was Senior Medical Oficer of the Corps during the Great. War, in a letter to the local papers protesting against, the statement in the Chinese press that the Kalan Mining Administration Nexpersed? large numbers of Chin fosse labourers to the. war front in France and. very few of them re-tured home ally 'As to the exporting,' Dr. Aspland points out that the trans-shipment of the 96,000 coolies shipped to France, by' the British Government would have been impossible had not China joined the war on the side of {the Allies, The coolies were. sent France' after strict medical exmination in China, in first-class ships under excellent conditions and the greatest -dificulty, "he writes, Wwas the rejecting of thousands. who were not required. De. dspland is convinced that a similar response would be made to-morrow if @ hun~ laced. thousand were needed, Every cockle had ten dollars a month paid 0 his family_or nominee in El fond received in France the equi lent of further ten dollars with food," clothing. and housing. The majority of the. coolies in. France deposited their pay in the Labour Corps banks and on leaving France received a credit note for their Savings, which were paid to them fon landing in Tsingtao, Dealing with the allegation that "very few of them have returned home Dr. Aspland mentions that as a Colonel in the Royal Army Medical "Corps. he commanded the Base Hospital to which most of the sick and wounded Chinese were admitted. "In this hospital," he @ates, "Thad 26 medical officers who were fall missionary doctors in China and hence the coolies; care which some respects was greater than tha shown to our own British sick and wounded. Of the 96,000 coolies, 198 wore ured in Franc, in and the French. Government. These ranted in perpetuity by. feemeteries ate walled in, and every ferave has a grave stone, and it may Sound amusing, but daily at my Base scores of Chinese. visited our cemetery for the Joy, as they ex: pressed it, of standing on a bit of Chinese sell. "There are several Chinese cemeteries in France which fare absolutely areas of "Chinese extraterritoriality" but are kept in repair and adorned with trees and flowers by the British Graves Com-
"With the exception of these 1,838 every man-jack of the 96,000 returned to China. I personally save them entrained and Major Wilson of {the P-U.M.C. and his staff saw them fenshipped at Havre. Of the 1,838 the majority died from sickness, lover 1,000 from tuberculosis, None were wounded from gun or rifle though the coolies in comnion. wit everybody. in Northern France Suffered from air raids. When it is feonsidered that these deaths extend fdlever a period of three years, the yearly percentage was less than China. "Had the 96,000 coolies, remained in China, more of them Would have died daring the three years than died in France." perienced such an unpleasant Spring.
Not for years has Peking. ex-But its an ill-wind that blows no zocd and the geological department, of Yenching University has turned tone of this month's worst dust storms to advantage by. carrying out an interesting experiment, A careful measurement was made of the amount of dust which fell Haitien during the latter part of a form on the night of April 14 and was found that the quantity Poeited on a surface measuring 460 Square inches weighed 13.7 grams. 'Assuming that an equal amount fell on all equal areas, this is equivalent to 110. tons of dust. per square mile, or 2,712 tons within the limits of the Peking city' wall. Even if for safety this figure were out in half, Professor George Barbour points vut, it would still need a train of forty-five 30-ton coal cars to remove by rail what the wind brought in overnight. extricated. Two of them; one ten-years old, and another, ' 11-years old, were, however, found to be dead after being removed whilst many others suffered injuries of varying degrees. Besides the dead and injured, five were
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.