CHINESE HORRORS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5303, 23 July 1928, Page 3

CHINESE HORRORS.

THOUSANDS STARVING.

OUTBREAK OF BLACK POX.

Writing to a, lady friend at St. Clair, Dunedin ,a lady who has been in Shanghai for nearly five years* states: “We still have a ffew troops here, and North and South are at it agajn, taxing merchants and the people to the utmost to raisp huge sums for warfare- it is criminal. In the North thousands arc; starving, and the- latest, news is that, black smallpox has broken out. The generals never have enough -money to carry on, and the soldiers are always many months in arrears with their pay. Armed robberies and kidnapping si'll take place in our fair city. There are about 150 a. month. The Chinese troops are- now attacking lone foreign women. One- young woman of 18 was brutally murdered the other afternoon. She was alone; in a hous® when, a Chinesp cook attacked her and cut her throat." Yesterday a coolie who murdered Mr|s. Forrester wag executed. It isn’t siafe for a foreign Woman to be left in the, house alone, especially at night. Every week a foreign or a Chinese policeman loses his life while catching or chasing armed robbers, or searching for suspicious characters. This Chinese Court (form.e'rly a mixed court) gives very light sentences and seems to be making, things harder, instead of assisting mattiers where the police are concerned. “I read a report, the other, day about the selling of pooir Chinese children. The mothers a,r.e very poor. In one of the northern towns (Hankow) some wheelbarrow coolies were taking bags or boxes to g. boat, when something they said made the soldiers on guard suspicious, and they ordered the boxes to be opened. Inside were several Chinese children, some already dead, their hands tied, and mouths gagged. They were to b'e shipped, to Shanghai. Some of them weire- sold for five dollars each. There were holes in the boxes for, air, but several of the poor kiddies were already dead. That is what they do to their own kind.” The- letter, which is dated April 24, states that the .writer and her husband (she married an Englishman in Shanghai) weire leaving on May 29 for England.