Chinese Man-of-war Holds up Coasting Steamer: Haul of $100,000 Worth of Drugs Behind the scene of current developments in China, there occur: Inst week a little incident which. throws fresh light on the conditions of the cou While military matters are being pursued, the possibilities of the opium trade are not being neglect-fed, as this often provides the sinews of war. been making its way from Yunnan and other southern sources into Canton and Shanghai, and the extent of this could hardly have been gauged until news came through to Hongkong during the ast week-end of a big yunnanese opium. The seizure was made on one of the trading coastal steamers, and the party which has now profited from the seizure is one of the military factions which controls the cruiser from which the seizure was effected.
Details are still being awaited to throw fresh light on the identity of the cruiser which was responsible for the holding up of the steamer for the purposes of the seizure, but what has been learned from a reliable source shows that this is but another instance of the good procedure of "setting a thief} to catch a thief."
It is learned that on February 5 a steamer which was on its way from the, south was stopped in the Hainan' Straits off, Hoihow by a Chinese cruiser and was boarded by a party of naval men. The confident manner in which the subsequent search was conducted showed that the naval men were pretty sure of the information which they must have previously received. At any rate they had not been. long at their job before they discovered The value of these amounts. to The drug was transferred to the cruiser which, after releasing the steamer, sailed off in an unknown connexion. it is stated that a similar fate befell another consignment of 300 cases of opium three months ago. The steamer which conveyed this opium had instructions to turn over the drug to 'a Chinese man-of-war which' would meet her out at sea a day's steam from Shanghai. The details worked out as scheduled, and the opium }was duly transferred to a Chinese cruiser which came out to meet the steamer near Shanghai, but it was not until some days afterwards that the syndicate which put through this big deal discovered that they had been duped. The man-of-war to which their valuable consignment had been transferred was not the jeular one controlled by the military faction through. whom they had hoped to put through the deal, but belonged to quite a different' faction. Obviously some traitor had betrayed their secret to "the enemy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.