AMONG THE CHINESE BRIGANDS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 April 1924, Page 3

AMONG THE CHINESE BRIGANDS.

SOUTH CHINA Somewhere in the wilds of South China is a small plateau nearly u,oooft high. It lies in the shadow of a vast range of hills infested with hngands. They are nearly all outlawed soldiers or escaped criminals, the scum of a mixed population, and they live from one potty theft to another. But occasionally fortune smiles and a rich booty falls to them; perhaps it is some foreigner whom they can ransom for a large sum, or, more likely, a wealthy Chinese merchant on his way to one of tlie small towns near the coast. And so they amass sums of money which they hoard, for they are outlaws lor life. The money will probably never he used, hut it is still a part of their lives.

Round their bodies tliey wrap yards of marvellous silk. They wear turbans of rich satin, or sashes of jade green and pink crepe de chine that would stock some London shops with 20-guinoa evening dresses. Eventually it rots away, but they can always get more. They hang coral and jarle round their necks.

The little town on the plain has a population mainly of poor labourers, who greatly fear the attacks of the brigands on their crops and herds. The place is typical of China, a maze of little streets, soino black pigs grovelling among the cabbage stalks, hundreds of little'mild houses, and round the corner a wonderful arch.

Below, two filthy beggars sit and shriek at the passers-by. .lust beyond is a fruit stall. A toothless old woman sits behind the piles of golden pears and rod persimmons—“tile fruit of heaven.”

Other streets are full of restaurants, where there is a perpetual smell of fried food in the air.

Crowds congregate here every day - the tribesmen from the plain encrusted with mud from the rice Helds, the shopkeeper, the shoemaker from himud hut, and the dyer, his hands -till blue, advertising Ids trade hv the tact that his cotton coat and trousers are quite unfaded and of the brightest blue. They discuss tile topics ol tire day over howls of steaming rice and opium pipes. Outside, the street is alive with a never-ending stream ol men, women and animals. Round all this is a thick wall, which has twice saved the population from a combined attack from the hills. While the rich retire shivering to their foreign-style houses, built well in the centre of the town, the motley population of poor are up in anus at once. They defend their, small, dark shops, full"of hales of silk, a few pigs and chickens, and small stocks of fruit and vegetables. Tt all stands lor their existence, .miserable as it is. M.. F. R. in Daily Mail.