The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-09-18


 cheat the soldiers and present false &C.,
 counts to the emperor and ministers
 of war. At Shanghai saw barracks
 which was supposed to contain 800 troops. The officer in charge of 1t drew
 rations. and pay for this number. but
 there were really only 400 soldiers in the garrison. and he was pocketing the balance His salary was something l like q. .0c0 or q, ,50O a year, but he spent S20.000, and was told that seventy of his understrappers and retairers sat | down every day at his table. He re-
 celved @ per month for the pay Of each
 man. and pocketed just $500 a month for the one hundred men who had no
 existencey but were represented by fcs
 titious names on his payrolls. As to the four hundred soldiers remaining was told that he paid them only sb per month each. and in this way he
 made 3400 per month more. In addi- ton to this he squeezed on their rations He blinded the eyes of the government by bribing the censors who are sent out IS inspectors, or he could hire an extra hundred men to i'll up his quota at the
 lime that the inspectors arrive. This
 man squeezes his under officers, but they protect him because he allows them to take percentage of the men below them, and the result is that the privates get little more than will keep them alive. Instead of having 800 we'll satisfied, and, for China. well paid,
 men, he has 400 who are discontented | and half-starved. This sort of thing is going on all over China, and one of the greatest dangers of the country comes of the dscontent of the soldiers. The government itself expects the off, cers to squeeze and cxtort. It pays low salaries and the officers are ex- pected to entertain like princes. Take | the Tautoi of Shanghai. His salary Is not more than that of one of our gov- ernment clerks, but he paid $300, ,000 this summer to one of the chief eunuchs of | the palace flor his influence with the | empress dowager in getting him posi- | ton, with the understanding that he | should have>it for three years. at least. | There Is no doubt in my mind but that the old dowager herself got a slice of the money This office Is worth about | $250,000 year in squeezes and steal- | ings, and as the Tautoi will receive something like s75O,OOO during his term
 he can afford to give $300,000 for the | job. The name of the eunuch who got | the money is Pi Tse Seau Ii. He combs the empress dowager's hair and is her confidential servant and adviser. At | the Kiagnan arsenal I learned some- thing of, how orders for guns and ships | are made and how these Chinese off, | cials are making money out of the pres | ent war. They order the ships through | foreign agents at Shanghai and insist that they shall nave from five to ten | per cent. of the amount of each order. | Many of these orders run into the mil | lions and you will see that their profits are large. They are very particular as to the foreigners making any money out of the business and insist that their | profit shal1. not be more than five per cent. on ,the, list price of the articles. On this basis the foreigner would not make anything for his work, as he has to pay at least five per cent. to the official who gives him the order. There is usually a collision between the for. eigner and the manufacturer by which the foreigner gets big percentage and the Chinansan pays an extra price for
 the article. 'F'
 This squeezing goes on everywhere
 both in China and in Corea. The off cers of the Chinese navy expect to make money out of their sailors. The officials in | charge of the railroads squeeze the men under them and every Chinese servant squeezes his master
 One of the greatest of official squeezes
 is in salt. This Is government mon.
 opoly, and its sale is farmed out to the
 highest bidders. The sale of, the salt for the district is worth hundreds of thou.
 sands of dollars, and foreigners are
 not permitted to handle it. There are
 salt stations at which supplies are
 stored and the native customs officers
 get their percentage on the salt as il
 passes from one district to another
 In the collection of tax for the gov
 ernment the officers take out somethine
 from every collection for themselves
 and If Chinaman has a large amour,
 of money, blackmail is sure to be lev
 led upon him in some way by the. off
 cials. Still, China, with all this, ha,
 about the lowest taxes in the world
 and 1t is only because the taxes are low
 that the government can retain its holt
 upon the people. If they should b,
 greatly increased by this war, rebel
 lions will spring up in many of .thi
 states. and the Chinese emperor Is, ,ir
 fact in more danger from the peepl,
 within, the empire than from the Japan
 ese outside of it.