Aug. 15.
AmonG the many sad stories that the Russian refugee community can tell, none more piteous could be found than that of the 700 men who have been cooped up on board the Eldorado off Chinhai for six mortal weeks. For these men are no mere drifters. They were not drawn to these regions by hopes of easy charity in the Tom Tiddler's ground of the Far East. They are all men trained to a trade and they came to Chekiang waters in the full expectation of getting work, armed with an agreement drawn up with all necessary conditions to justify their belief. They have been badly let down and there they remain, forbidden to land anywhere, crowded together in a ship of only 800 tons, a ship ina very bad and foul state, her engines quite incapable of producing more than two or three knots, lying practically in an open roadstead. It is Heaven's mercy that they did not go to the bottom in the recent typhoons.
The refugee community of Gensan was composed broadly of two groups. Of these, the Far Eastern group consisted mainly of Cossacks with their wives and children: with them we are not for the moment concerned. The men of the Eldorado, we are informed, had formed themselves into a workmen's association, known as the Ural Siberian group, some years ago. They have no wives or children, they fought together during the war and were a notable part of the anti-Bolshevik forces in Siberia, which means that they dare not go back to Russia. There is not one of them that has not been wounded, some more than once. About three per cent. are cripples or invalids, whom the rest support out of a sense of the brotherhood of their association.
The remainder, we are assured, ate all good men of their trades, The discipline among them is said to be excellent. Indeed, were it otherwise, they would never have endured the miseries of their life on the Eldorado so long and with so much. self-restraint and fortitude.
Last spring they got work at Gensan road- and dike-making, but the Japanese authorities warned them that it would not be permanent and Ural-Siberian
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.