The San Francisco call., 1898-01-16

prominent figure he cut in the inces- sant assaults on English commerce in the China seas. It was one of Lun TaTs bold raids that led to a combina- tion between the English war vessels and the Chinese regular soldiers for a united action against the murderous pirates. Efforts were made at the time to capture Lun Tai, for he was known to be the head, front and brains Of the most tricky, most daring and most heartless gang of pirates that ever footed helpless merchants along the Chinese main After the famous engagement of the pirates stronghold the dead were all carefully examined, but Lun Tai, the fox, was not among them. Months afterWard it transpired that just before the trap was sprung that penned the pirates within the small bay before their mud forts Lun Tai had received warning from some of the very Chinese that the British had sent forward as spies.
 Of that three days stubborn fight with the cOrnered pirates, of their des- perate struggles to escape when hemmed in and of the execution of about 400 survivors afterward by the Chinese authorities, Captain Jackson tells as follows:
 "Lun Tai was the cleverest and big gest daredevil among that punk-smell- ing, gong beating crew of heather devils. They killed and plundered from sheer delight in such work. Manys the poor crew they smothered between decks with their pestlential stinkpots. and many's the poor fellow that has saved himself a worse death by simply jumping overheard to drown. Jim Moss did that, but he came out all right. if he was nearly dead for a time and it was his escape, l guess, that led to the hot attack on Lun Tai and his fiends Understand that all of them that we rounded up were directly under Lun Tai. There were some 1500 that made the last stand in their junks and behind their mud forts.
 He was only one of a lot of independ- ent freebOoters that we cornered there, but he was the one we were most anX- ious to bury under the ruins of their forts and junks.
 All this news in the daily papers about the Chinese situation and the sharp air of this season of the year sets the wounds twitching that I re- ceived in that fight and brings up all the details of the action When I saw the name of Lun Tai in the dispatches and remembered how sharply we all hunted for him in that fight, I w0n- dered if that old fox had been killed at last, or if he was only shamming Even now I'd think twice before I'd ac- cept Coroner's certificate that he ws-s really dead. Our information that he escaped in that last fight with the pi- rates must have been true, then. They said he'd gone south to join the dare devils who afterward came to the front among the Black Flags. If he oid the French must have caught sight of him in Tonuuin.
 IL all came about this way: H. NJ S Pearl on which I was an officer. happened to be ordered guardship at Hongkong Without any loss of life on our side we relieved the monotony theIe by capturing the pirates junks that would creep into the entrance of Hongkong under cover of darkness and spy out the rich sailing vessels. Once these vessels ventured outside. the pirates would swoop down and loot them.
 As we were paid a big bounty for every junk captured, money and cham