Whenever there is trouble in North China whether internal or due to outside pressure a1 {in the present instance, there is a recrudescence of activity by the Red Spears. This peasants' society is only one of a number which has been existence for many years, disappearing at {intervals of prosperity. but reappearing when times are hard. 'The story of the origin of the society, of which there were, a few years more than eighty different lodges," has become hopelessly confused by what has leaked: out about their ritual observances. 'These latter' fare, as usual in these societies, based upon some myth which points to an excellent moral, but probably in most cases have been corrupted by relics of still older rituals and practices which! have been handed down from generation to) generation from the times of the Yellow Turbans and some say even earlier. One of their creeds that their rites make them invulnerable; belief which hag survived the proof of its absurdity given by the casualties caused among the Boxers in 1900, and which has again had tragic results in the number of killed and wounded who, as described in last week's issue, attempted an attack on Chowtsun in Shantung, fand were greeted by Japanese machine-guns. The belief in invulnerability has always proved. an important part of the creeds of the lower: orders in North China's secret societies. Without it in the days when bandits were not s0 well armed as they are now and freely plun-ered the peasant and farmer, there would. have been considerable difficulty in gaining recruits. 'The Boxers had it, and most of the societies which have followed in their wake—a society founded by one Kao of Tehchow in' Shantung, who posed as the adopted son of famous fairy; the Golden Bell Chimney Society; the Iron Coat Society; and the Hard Rellies of later years. Many more could be named, with their intriguing-sounding titles. But most of] them have now been limped under the more' general nomenclatures of Red Spears and Black' Spears.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.