The Topeka state journal., 1900-08-25

this moment in the precise hour that
the guns near behring's house will open
fire. With the shells coming from two
directions into this part of town, our
position is not comfortable. The house
which 1 am occupying is the only one
il the neighborhood which has not been
hit at least once. We are boasting a
good deal about our luck and Chinese
recognition of privileges of the press.
July S.-The guns near behring's
house officially announced their exist
ence this morning AS soon as the 12-
Founders began shooting into the ma
tive city, they began shooting at the
1z-pounders, picking up the range
quickly and landing one shrarpnel SO
well that one bluejacket was killed and
two wounded A japanese battery and
the British native Indian Sikh battery
from Hong Kong chimed in, to protect
the 12-pounder from being harassed by
bigger foe The Japs' practice was ex-
cellent, the Sikhs' very good; and they
forced the Chinese to stop firing. At
no time, however had we been able to
see the Chinese guns, which seemed to
be masked behind little roll of ground.
There has been a good deal said about
the superiority of the Chinese marks
manship to ours. That is talk They
have guns of position, have been weeks
studying the ranges. have better OBJ
servation towers, better marks as well
as bigger guns than We The greatest
excellence of the Chinese as a soldier
man. their foreign instructors tell us, is
in gunnery. That appeals to their in
stinct for firing at the enemy at long
range and never coming to close quar-
ters with him. They have only to throw
a shell into town in order to make some
body feel it; and heaving shells into
town is precisely what they are doing;
and then they have three ranges well
placed from their battery at the railway
bridge Yet they have fired a hundred
shells at one of the biggest buildings in
town, which is occupied by the Jauanese
barracks hiring
1t once, and only making it extremely
warm for the houses in the rims of the
target. In his distribution of fire, the
Chinese gunner is sadly at fault
At o'clock all four of the guns in the
native city were turned on this section
of town. One of the first struck the
macadamized road which has been my
terror Four pieces of it burst, as it
ricochetted from the road, caught a
Japanese soldier who was passing, and
he fell like a log of wood, blood gushing
from his wounds, in view of my window.
Other fragments struck the house, some
carrying fifty yards from the point of
bursting. 1 had barely returned from
the back door to see where the frag-
and our house was so full of dust that
ii choked me and forced me to fall back
for moment before could go upstairs
to see if the explosion had ignited any,
thing. Luckily it had not inasmuch as
five of it's fragments had entered the
Water-tank whose contents were intend
ed for such occasions The shell, g.
inch one, entered through the wooden
casing of the upstairs window of the
hallway. The first object that it struck
was wooden knob on the banisters,
which was knocked in splinters a good
deal finer than toothpicks. At this pc mt
it exploded. part of the fragments going
upstairs and part through the floor
downstairs. tearing through DOORS floors
and plaster as if they We're paper Yet
you might have sat at one place on the
stairs and not been hit In another