Morning journal and courier., 1882-12-09

Soon, as to the cause of the disturbance, I
 lesrned that few nights before some boat
 men ffgom Ta-ta Poh, a large and notoriously
 turbulent village on the south side of the
 harbor, had>offered some bad c0Sh in payment
 of debt inc1fxed in one of the small gam ! bling houses in t6wn. ct is difficult to fath
 om the depth of infamy to which e0e1o c | Chi7aa1nan must descenG1-Who will try to de-
 base coin So insignifcant>p value that from l twelve to fourteen of them >eply equal one
 cent, but they do it) The proprietor, re- i senting the attempt to swindle hIm, had
 called upon his croupiers and servants and | turned the gang out of doors. Whereup0n
 the boatmen hurried to the city front gath
 cred together Q goody sized crowd of their
 friends and fellow villagers (not 8 difficult
 thing to do. as the Ia ta Poh boatmen had, l for many years, had $ monopoly of the light
 craze along the Swatow city front), and, turning to the gambling house, proceeded to | CIett71 out the whole establishment, smashing
 in the doors and windows, breaking furniture 1 and implements, throwing tne ''plant" into the street. abusing and beating the proprie-
 tor and all of his assistants and servants, and generally conducting themselves witL so much impropriety that the watch was at last com pelled to take notice of the disturbance Like good many watchmen, or (what Is tho 1 same thing policemen of those countries 1 that arrogate to themselves better right to spread larger civilized" before their com mon noun than they accord the "Heathen Chinee' Gan assumption that provokes a smile as we remember the antiquity of the heathen's civilization at the time we were pulling infants among the nations of the earth ) the Swatow watch appeared on the scene when the mischief was all done, and tried to arrest the offenders But the boat
 men were too many for them and, flushed with victory, so far forgot themselves as to resist the officers, retired from the scene in good order and returned to their boats Very soon, however, the strong of the law info hO fha frIa nf ha ns6 1 proprietor, large number of citizens who 1 bore the south -siders a grudge for many ] similar, though not quite so fragrant, breach 1 es of the peace, and by lot of good for nothings who, like their similars the world | over, were ''spiling for 8 fight" and only too ready to take hand in any scrimmage that promised some fun without much danger | The result of this righteous @ indignation l and justifiable CD uprising was that the whole ] lot of boats, large and small, belonging to l the Ia ta Poh men, whether peaceful or bel ! ligerent, had been driven away from the city | front and had gone off vowing vengeance. The disturbance and commotion so mani 1 festly apparent in town this particular morning was due to the fact that vengeance was coming in the shape of a large f1otilla of l boats of various sizes manned by the 1 outraged, angry south-siders just emerging l from the mouth of Ta-ta Poh creek about 1 two miles away and bearing down upon Swa tow to punish the townsmen for stopping the innocent amusement of paying gambling debts with counterfeit cash and breaking up house or two. All these boats were under sail excepting the smallest sampans but, there being scarcely any breeze the sails were supplemented with oars that made tremendous splashing, indicative of fran tic effort to hurry as much as possible. "A long pull, a strong pull and & pull all togeth- er'' is one thing the Chinese oarsman doesn't
 'sabee.' If he can't make splash and big noise he isn't rowing fast at all As they
 came on the sounds of gongs and tom toms
 Small drums) popping of firecrackers and shouts of the uages became more and more
 unpleasantly audible until, when the fleet
 rounded to and dropped anchor off the town, the racket was almost deafening.
 The excitement in town was now wrought up to the highest pitch. Not soul was to be seen on the long, broad plaza in front of the foreign houses, bounded on one side by the sea wall, on the other by the compound walls of the custom house at the eastern end and long row of "hongs," consulates, stores, residences and ending, just beyond the Missionary hospitals, against the sides of several large storehouses that marked the limit of encroachment on the bund by the 1 native town from the west. From the back windows of our office, situated about the middle of the row, only an occasional flying figure could be seen hurrying either to coign of vantage or to place of safety. The shops were all closed, the fronts, both of the shops themselves and the overhanging balco-
 nies, being closely barred by heavy shutters, but close inspection revealed the presence of few spies peeping from safe hooks and
 corners, closely watching the movements of the enemy Our servants told that the townsmen were arming and preparing to make q big fight, and assured we would pretty
 soon 'hear the gongs and see the banners" two features of the equipment of a Chinese army to which special attention is always paid. At about eleven o'clock the besleging force
 began disembarking, and, if possible, the din increased. All the small boats that could
 float in the shallow water between the l 'troop ships" at anchor clear of the mnd
 flats and the end of the custom house jetty
 were crowded with tho first detachment so to
 speak of commanders, shouting braves, spearmen, matchlock men, tontom men
 (the drum corps, gong men and banner
 men. have named them in the reverse or
 der of their apparent importance and have
 purposely omitted all mention of the com
 mon boatmen who poled and padded the
 small boats to and fro, since they were evi-
 dently quite insignificant in the brilliant
 light of the noble heroes they were conveying
 to (improbable) death and (possible) vic
 tory.
 The custom house jetty, at the end of
 which the landing was effected, Gin the face
 of opposition, however, was long, mar
 row stone pier that had been built from the
 bend or sea wall in front of tho custom house
 out to comparatively deep water in order that heavy merchandise might be easily
 landed at point convenient to the inspec- tors store. Having itself acted as @ dam to break the flow of the tides, the detritus had settled at the sides and in front of it to such extent that at low water there some | thing. like 100 yards of tidal mud between it's | end and any water at all, while at high tide 1 none but the smallest boats could reach it. l Hence the larger boats of the invaders bear | ing the rank and file were forced to drop an | chor some distance out while the landing
 made in the little sampans.
 I may here mention that the power and authority of the commanders, (of whom
 there seemed to be number), were very l evanescent, for, as soon as the fight actually
 began, and 1t may properly be said to have i done so when the march up the jetty com
 menced, every mothers son in the lot imme-
 diately constituted himself little army unto ! himself, gave and executed his own order ito 1 which no other person gave the slightest
 heed), and in fact acted quite independently
 of everyone else, leaving the poor command CTS in the rear shouting themselves black in | the face to no purpose. The first lot of fel- | lows who landed were evidently the hardy dare devils, the Billy Wilson Fire Zouave"
 sort of reckless spirits, noticeably the ban ner mon, (many of whom had large red cir
 cles sewed on the fronts of their jackets in
 which were big black characters, meaning
 "brave," ''fghter," etc.,) for while | the musicians, (shades of the immor
 tai composer forgive me if l so debase | the word ) were pounding and blowing the life out of gong, tom tom and horn and the
 artillerists CD were popping firecrackers and exploding bombs, these valiant spirits would
 rush frantically up the pier dozen or two
 paces, yelling like mad, stop, leap in the air l with all their strength previously waving their banners all the time, and on alighting
 on their feet again would a,aahe Iaces, stick
 out their tongues, ,spitato frighten their oppo-
 nents. It was ludicrous in the extreme!
 The job of getting those hundred men
 landed and ready for the attack was long
 and serious matter, involving an enormous
 consumption of breath and mental as well as
 physical strength, and when they were all
 on the jetty it was mixed and motley con-
 pany indeed. One was forcibly reminded of l s'Hark Hark The dogs do bark,
 The beggars coming to town."
 Only there were no velvet gowns; indeed the
 T have never found satisfactory description of
 Shroff in any of the numerous books and articles ! China that have read, and will try to give
 idea of this i'm portant officer. Inasmuch most of i the circulating medium is Mexican or Spanish dol l lars which have been stamped, ''chopped,n by
 many hong marks until they cup-shaped and
 spread nearly twice their original size, the most l important of Shrof the