One of the highest officials here in Foochow remarked to a foreigner that the soldiers did not need money, as their rifles were their cheque books. I-suppose it is on this supposition that the military Tuchuns appropriate the soldiers' pay, after having extracted it from local merchants, and when they hi enough skip to some Treaty Port, where they are given protection by the very foreigners that they flout, and bank their ill-gotten gains safely away in foreign banks, leaving their soldiers to draw money at the point of the bayonet from the twice robbed inhabitants. One cannot help feeling that if safe asylum were not given to these thieves they would be less inclined to risk stealing public money in this way, as after all they are a cowardly. lot, and value their hides even more than the money. One of the recent military governors of Foochow decided that it was time to seek safety in flight, so he collected large sums of money from the people to pay the troops. These he deposited 1 a bank. Next he paid up all the soldiers with cheques, but before they could cash these, he drew out the money from the bank. boarded a north-bound vessel, and reached Shanghai. and there he is safe. Thus he staved off the demands of the soldiers while he made his getaway, and but for the strong action of a famous Admiral here, the soldiers would have turned on the people and looted them. It
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.