Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-10

PIRACY IN CHINA.
Little Armed Violence and Loss of
Life is Unknown.


Life is Unknown.
From the London Telegraph.
The stupidity of the mandarins. the
cowardice of the boatmen and the apathy
of the people in general have combined to
make the pirates the masters of the situa-
ton. The pirate does not belong to caste
or profession; he is simply a peasant or a
boatman, who turns to piracy for livei-
hood in slack times slack not only by
shrinkage of trade, but by official acauies-
cence. OftentimeS particular villages take
to it in the off season for the purpose of
revenging themselves on neighboring COM
munities with which they have been carry
Ing a blood feud. Certainly in some
cases pirates and soldiers are interchange
able at different times Hardly a week
passes in which some RATS or junks, or
both, are not held up and robbed in two
or three parts of the river, and this takes
place in spite of frequent protest on the
part of merchants and consuls.
The most curious part of the piratical
trade is that it is attended with little Of
the armed violence and skull and cross
bones business of the old school. Ten CT
twelve men will approach fleet of junks
a group of island RATS and board them,
armed with Belgian revolvers of uncertain
shooting power. Both junk and raft carry
cannon of an antique mold, six or eight to
each with shot piled up in pyramids round
the guns, and provided, in addition, with
racks of rifles and gingals in plenty. At a
landing stage not far below Wu-Chau there
was drawn up a huge fleet of salt junks
heavily laden with one of the most valu-
able of native cargoes. Perhaps there may
have been fifteen such ships, and they con-
tanned crews numbering not less than 400
men. Only three days previously this flo
tila had been held up by dozen pirates
and forced to pay enormous ransom, yet
these sailors, with all their armament, had
Not tirra nd or fnnt n haJr nh-p do
tense.
Attendant loss of life is almost unknown.
week before our visit there had been a
great pirate hunt on the southern banks of
the upper river, and the peasants turned
out in their thousands, with their ancestral
gingals and lined the reedy shores for
miles in search of the marauders. A
stranger would have imagined that strong
sense of justice had impelled the people
of the countryside to rise up against the
naughty men, but it explained that
more probably it was merely a phase in a
local dispute. The pirates belonged to one
village, their assailants to several others,
and the spoil had not been fairly appor-
toned among the different interests in
volved, hence this sudden seeking after
righteousness among the alluvial commu-
nifty.
1t is not always So The project may de-
nounce piracy in unmeasured terms of Chi
nese vituperation, but it is seldom he can
obtain sufficient soldiers to root 1t out Of
ehis district. Properly speaking, he ought
to have a regiment at hand to carry out
his threats. but it is contrary to custom for
these soldiers to have more than a paper
existence. The only time in the year that
they appear is for the purpose Of provin-
cial inspection, and then they are hired
for the Gay and given uniform Jackets to
put over their coolie garments.
When piracy becomes rebellion, and re-
bellon civil war, the local officials, in dire
terror for their own SKINS seek to raise an
army by sending runners to beat gongs and
blow trumpets on the neighboring hills.
Any casual coolie who puts In an appear
ance is forthwith enlisted and marched off
to battle, cheerfully engaging to stand up
as target for the consideration paid to
his family for a superior funeral and a
grave on the hillside, Of which the feng-
shut or geomantic properties are above
reproach. Only six months ago the crowd
at Wu-Chau, enraged at some foreign pur-
chase of land, threw themselves upon the
ma gistrate in his own yamen, pulled his
pigtaii and otherwise maltreated him, with
out interference, in the presence of his own
soldiers, but did not dare to attack single
one of the small band of foreigners in the
CITY.