It is a very touching appeal that is printed in o-day's correspondence columns for help for an aged Chinese who was one of the messengers between the beleaguered Peking Legations and Tientsin during the Boxer Trouble. There were not many of them, but some of the Chinese, loyal to their foreign employers, took the great risk of travelling through the Boxer lines carrying messages both ways. Had they been discovered they would have been killed, but despite their realization of this they stuck loyally to their employers and gave the Legations the only means of communication with the outside world during those tragic weeks nearly forty years ago. The man in question, through what has been happening around Shanghai, has lost his principle means of support and is now on the verge of destitution. It seems to have been a remarkable oversight that these men were not Properly looked after when relief was brought to the Legations, but such appears to have been the case, and, belatedly, an opportunity is being afforded those, who have survived the long years since then, to come to this man's assistance. There probably are not many left who went through that trying experience, for four decades wreak a deal of havoc amongst mortals, and there are only a few whose names readily come to mind. But there may be some to whom the knowledge of this man's plight will prove an incentive to extend a little assistance. Obviously not a great deal would be required, and it would be a pleasing gesture if, even at this late date, early loyalty were rewarded by that care of which this aged Chinese is clearly in need. For that reason it is to be hoped that Bishop Norris's appeal will not fall on deaf ears, and that amongst the many so charitably minded in Shanghai there will be found a few who will rally to this loyalist's aid.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.