Peking, Sept. 1.
Seven thousand persons have been killed, more than 100 villages and towns have been captured and looted, and thousands of women fand girls have been carried off for ransom, according to reports from the province of Honan which are apparently reliable.
Twelve separate bandit gangs, lurider powerful leaders, have ravaged most of the districts in the province which were not occupied by the Jarmies of Marshal Feng Vu-hsiang, news is just beginning In the' Yuhsien district alone, two bandit gangs captured 48 villages footed and burned them all, and carried off 1,100 persons for ransom. The captives were carried into the been robbed of their possessions, are unable to help them.
The number of killed and wounded in this district alone is estimated 5,000 men, women and children. The bandits were not Communists—even by pretence,—but were perhaps the most cruel bands which operated in China this year. Eye Witnesses describe appalling cruelty. The robbers carried big swords, and hacked off the heads of children as they passed through village streets.
The bandits seemed to go wild as the orgic of Killing and looting pro-grossed. They destroyed for the pleasure of destroying, even burning, {down the growing grain in the fields, Isolated farmers were, killed gen-the Yuhsien district.
Detailed reports have not. yet arrived here from the Mingtsinhsien district, where bandits captured the district' capital and several nearby! Villages. They have set up a robber Rovernment in the chief town of {the district, Mingtsin, and the fate ofthe inhabitants is unknown, 'Thirteen villages were captured in the neighbourhood of Loyang, once the capital of all China, by the bandit leader Sun Yao-hsien, He carried off all persons who might' Dringe any sort of ransom, and the! cattle of the farmers. " Villages were burned, and the district s0 thoroughly ravaged that it will take years to, recover.
'Two rival bandits gangs engaged in. battles for possession of the Paofenghsien' district, and the robbers suffered many casualties. The inoffensive villagers were the chief sufferers, however. Seven villages were burned down, and about 100 carried off for ransom.
One of the districts which sulfermost severely was Yenlinghsien, where about 60 villages were captured and looted. Some of these] villages did not contain more than few houses, and fell an easy prey to a well-organized gang led the well-known bandit. "Lame Wang."
Conditions in Honan are describ-Jed as the worst since the beginning. of the Republic. The bandits have their own way in about three-quarters of the province, due largely to the fact that civil war has drawn all the garrison troops, and the villagers have been left unprotected. Pamine is considered able this winter in some ts, because of the destraction of crops' and food supplies by the handits—United Press. ness world, As taxes have mount-fed on high, the payers have grown to believe it to be their prerogative to decide what proportion they shall themselves pay. Stores never, never, cout their true capit when they take out busine: and so pay smaller business tax: than they would if they told the! truth, And so with the property owners: they never, never, give out their actual income. To show how, the landlords "get by" with it, keeping down their tax expenditures, the may cite a single case, that of his own landlord. In the record rentals prepared for the inspeetion of the'tax officials, only " small art of what is collected from the tenants goes down as rent. There are a host of charges for elevator service, janitor service and so on, all deducted from: the receipts, the} tax being paid only on the balance eft after all these deductions have been made.
The Government is not blind, but is helpless under the circumstances. So universal is the practice that it] would cost more than it is worth. to bring to account all who cheat jand pay less than their due share.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.