Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-08-29
WAS A RICH PRIZE
STORY OF ITEM TSIN-LOOT FOR
EVERYBODY.
PREY FOR TROOPS AND THIEVES.
Fire Of Allied Army Was Deadly
Labyrinth of Hovels and
Filth.

Tien Tsin. July 1T.-tCorrespondence
of the Associated Press. 1.-THE ancient
stone walls of the Chinese city of Tien
Tsin, surrounded on the days of it's oc-
cupation by the allied troops, a square
mile of such filth, ruin and death, such
turmoil and pillage as history could
hardly duplicate. Under normal condi-
lions the place was no better than a
huge cesspool, fostering with the ac-
cumuIated rubbish and Stops from a pop
ulatiOn of nearly a million. packed INTO
a labyrinth of novels. around the palaces
of viceroys and petty Tao Tails who alb
sorbed their wealth and gave them not
even sewers in return. To- it is the in
carnation of all the suffering, horrors
and waste of war.
The European soldiers, when they
fought their way up to the walls, saw
floating in the canals and bitches out
side dozens of Chinese. slain by their
own people because they refused to fight.
The bodies We're headless. and their
hands were tied behind their backs.
The heads were discovered afterwards.
Rows Of them decorated the outer walls.
hung by their pigtails. Five flags We're
flying from the high pagods on the city
walls when the newspaper correspond
ents entered-French, Japanese, Alneri-
can. Russian and British.
1T was hard enough to get those flags
UP there remarked a foreign officer.
but the real trouble will be to get them
down.
The suburbs of the city presented a
foretaste of what was inside. Shells had
torn the huts n plowed the grund.
while the dead men scattered about
among dead horses, pigs and dogs, testi-
fled how thoroughly the bullets had
swept the region the day before.
The sights inside compelled respect for
the fighting qualities of the Chinese.
Their Haa1 wpra ny-arvvvhara DpocSoJ II,
the coarse blu coolie blouse and
trousers, decorated with characters,
guaranteed to render them invulner-
able to foreign bullets. they were
ever they had fallen. Walking a quar-
ter of a mile along the embankment, the
bodies averaged one in ten feet, and the
wall was nearly ten miles long.
throughout the city the demolished
houses and hundreds of killed gave evil
dence of how vastly more effective had
been the foreign shell fire within the
walls of the city han the Chinese bonn
of the foreign settlement.
which. lasting for a month. had killed
only a dozen people, The viceroy had
constructed in the palace yard two com |
Portable and lmpenetrable bomb-proofs.
excavations guarded by s%andbags, but |
the common people were less fortunate. |
Many women and children were lying
dead in the streets. torn terribly nv
poptllISS vert /
utterly Indifferent to them. They would |
not take the trouble to drag them out
of the streets. Or eve cover them with
mating. as a foreign soldier did after
ward. but trampied them under foot
without bothering to turn aside. Before
the shooting in the streets was finished
thousands OF Chinese had emerged from
tnelr burrows. carrying white flags, or
the fiagS of foreign nations, principally
the japanese.
Most remarkable Of all sights was the
lootlng of the city. the middle of tba
place Wasike an ant hill kicked open. /
thlnese sWarmed everywhere, thousands
anu thouslng of them: diving into the
flames Of the burning shops getting un-
der falling walls and into choking clouds
OF smoke. Most of them We're half naked.
gilmy With smoke and sometimes drip-
ping with blood. They were piled non
one another. The Chinese who would win
a prize must fight his way, other Chinese
would spring upon him and pluck his
plumber. They rolled among the corpses,
pulling and tearing while children being
trampled down cried for help and the mob
poured right over them.
The palaces, the mint, the pawn shops,
the stores of silks, furs and jewelry were
the first objects of attack. Near the
middle of the city was the most prosper
Gus paWnshop, an institution that had
probably existed for centuries. Wealthy
Chinese Were accustomed to store their
winter clothing there for safe keeping.