Gen. Chao Ti, hearty and cheerful and still retaining his striking beard, is living in seclusion and comparative poverty in one of the treaty ports. He is anxious to return to Honan, not for any reinstatement to high office, but that she might be given an opportunity to show what he can do in annihilating brigands. He states that when he was given a free eand he cleared up White Wolf in three months, with only 2,000 picked soldiers, and boasts that he could do the same with the present bandits. Gen. Wu Pei-fu has invited him back to take his place among the gentry of Honan, an Gon. Chang Fu-lai approves of this, and has offered to afford him full protection, but though Gen. Chao cheves they would stand by their word, yet he is too proud to return until Peking annuls the previously issued against him. As to the rumours of his wealth, it is now believed he is not rich, and he himself is willing for any investiga-: tion into his personal circumstances, which he says will reveal that his assets are considerably less than the official salary he was entitled to draw during the few years he was Tuchun of Honan.
The two main reasons for the extensive banditry in Honan this year were, first, the large body of soldiers who were outlawed, and who, having no means of livelihood, turned to brigandage as the readiest means of support; and second, revenge for the execution of Gen. Pao Teh-chuan, One feels that if Gen. Feng had beet given a free hand in putting down bandits he; would have accomplished it, though not without drastic measures, but it is significant that there should have been more or less friendly intercourse between the bandits and the soldiers under the other generals in the Province, and that only since'Gen. Feng left have the bandits become more amenable to negotiations, which finally resulted in the release of the foreigners—Gen. Chang Fu-lai has received communications from the bandits saying that their opposition. was directed against Gen. Feng) who was responsible for their defeat and for the execution of Gen. Pao, but that they had no grudge against the present Tuli, and were now willing to come to terms. Moreover, they very clearly stated that, though they seized foreigners as the most powerful means of obtaining their demands, yet they had no' intention whatever that they should be harmed, and had treated them as best they could under the conditions of their captivity. They gave as their reason for this that, during the last two years of famine in Honan, it was the foreigners who provided money and grain, "and kept tens of thousands of their fellow provincials alive, and that they would rather kill their own children than those who had shown such sacrifice in succouring Honan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.