The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1900-09-07
THE NON-COMBATANTS
Allied Troops Numbering Defense
less Women and Children.
The Chinese i'm the Pei HO Valley
Are Reported to Be Paying
Dearly for the FOlIies OF
Their Government.

tribuuOn they are suffering exceeds
the ordinary penalties of war. Along
the river and the roads travelled by
the foreign troops between Tien-Tsin
and Pelling an orgie of looting and
destruction continues, with much use
less slaughter of unoffending inhabi-
tants. While the international forces
were advancing the commanders, no
tably the Japanese, American and
British, enforced a certain degree of
protection for property not needed
for military purposes.
At that time most of the popula-
ton except the fighting men had fed.
But now the people are returning to
their homes, only to find no shelter
or rice or occupation. In the over
crowded, famine-threatened districts
away from the river their lives and
small possessions are at the mercy of
bands of soldiers travelling about
without officers. The conditions
prevailing leave little ground for the
favorable comparison of civilized war
fare with Chinese methods.
Robbery and murder and violence
to women are so common that every
respectable person one meets contrib
Utes stories from personal observa-
tion. The walled city of Tung Chow
was the only town in the pathway of
the international forces whose people
resisted and attempted to continue
business.
When the armies advanced, how
ever, the guards were removed, only
small British and American garrison
being left outside the wall. A CORE
spOndent, returning from Peking
found Tung Chow stripped like
cornfeld after a plague of grasshop-
pers, evrything portable of the small
est value having been taken-goods
from shops, clothing, food and furni-
ture. Parties of soldiers of every ma
tionality were roaming about Unre-
stricted, and, presumably, were doing
much wanton destruction, in the spir-
it of deviltry, smashing furniture and
glassware and trampling books and
pictures under foot. Most of the Chi
nese were submitting to all this in
abject fear. The few who dared to
protest were kicked about.
Several bodies lay in the streets, APP
parently those Of non-combatants.
The inhabitants, without food or
clothing, were budding in back yards
in a pitiable condition.
The villages to the southwark were
even worse despoiled. One week after
Picking was taken the traveller to Tien-
Tsin was seldom out Of sight of burn
ing houses. Fires are started daily,
although the shelter will be much
needed if the troops are to hold the
country during the winter. The sol
diers are having ''fine sport" in using
as targets natives who creep back to
their houses or attempt to work in
the fields. The sight of a farmer ly-
ing where he was shot, with a basket
of grain or an armful of other pro
duce near by, is quite common.
The Russians are the chief actors in
this style of conquest, but the French
are remarkably conspicuous, consid-
ering their small numbers. The In
dian troops and the Japanese are
participants only when beyond the
ken of their officers.
From the beginning the conduct OF
the Russians has been blot on the
campaign. The recital of notorious
facts speaks more forcibly than could
any adjectives. When entering Pc
king, the correspondent saw Cossacks
smash down women with the butts
of their guns and pound their heads
until they were dead. The Cossacks
would pick up children barely able tc
walk, hold them by the ankles and
beat out their brains on the pave
ment. Russian officers looked on with
out protest.
While Gen. Chaffee was watering
his horse at a stream under the wal
of Tung Chow, the Russians found
feeble, old man hidden in the mud
except his nose and dragged him out
by the quegue shouting gleefully
They impaled him on their bayonets
Gen. Chaffee remarked, ''TNhat is not
war. 1t is brutal murder"
American officers at Talku, days af
ter the fighting was finished, saw
Russians bayonet Chinese children
and throw old men into the river
clubbing them to death when they
tried to swim. The Russians killed
wo-0en who knelt before them and
begged for mercy. These incidents are
SO numerous as to compel the con
clus IN that they are not isolated cpl
sod'j, but the ordinary practices OF
Russian methods of warfare.
The Russians on the walls of Pc
king would apparently shoot every
Chinaman withins range outside. A
correspondent found many newly
killed in the fields outside of the Rus
sian section of the wall.
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