The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-12-06
"OUR BETSEY'S' WORK IN PEEK
 ING.

A Chinese Gun and Its Ammunition.
 The following is an interesting ac-
 count of the now famous international
 gun known as Our Betsey:"
 An American gunner, named Mitch- ell, of the United States Legation Guard of Marines, proposed to make small cannon out of an old British legation pump A number of Chinese converts, 1 refugees in the British legation, togeth- CT with a few marines, were sent to shops within the lines to find materials and tools whereWith to bring about the necessary conversion of the pump. While they were forag ging in a deserted blacksmith shop they discovered, to their intense joy and surprise, an old cannon of Chinese manufacture, and brought it home. amid the shouts of the beseiged The next trouble was suitable ammunition, When the Rus sians left their legation, in more or less of a panic, they threw some shells they had in their possession into we'll to prevent their possibly falling into the hands of the Chinese These were fish, ed out and adapted after a lot of skill and ingenuity, to meet the contingency Other ammunition was made out of pewter, candlesticks and temple vessels of every description, footed from a tenn pie within the lines
 The manufacture of this ammunition was under the superintendence of one of the British marines; 'Betsey' was mounted on an Italian gun carriage; Chinese gun powder formed the charge; Russian shells were fred and the American gunner, Mitchell, fired the gun. Unfortunately, on the day before the troops arrived, this very capable gunner was seriously wounded in the arm by bnllet from the enemy's fire. Although it was not by any means a formidable weapon the excessively loud report therefrom usually struck consternation into the hearts of the Chinese soldiers, with the inevitable re- suit that they quilted their position as quickly as possible when Betsey' was brought to bear upon them Possibly they imagined that, by some means or other the legation defenders had been reinforced by a big battery of artillery, seing that 'BetseY was constantly be- ing moved from one position to an- other, and during the first day of the siege there was an entire absence of anything of the nature of heavy firing from the Europeans. One night when the French legation, the eastern limit of the lines of defence, was hard pres sed, Betsey' was taken over and put into operation there, with the result that the attacking Chinese soon scat tered in all directions. On the memor- able night before therelef force arrived when the Chinese made their most viz orous attack of all, the defenders had in operation every single gun that could be Betsey,' the British Nordenfeldt quick-firing gun brought up by the Marine guard, the American Colt quick firer, the Italian one pound- CT and the Austrian machine gun. In addition to this, the heavy artillery of the Chinese and the rifle fire on both sides necessarily going on in the Mon- gol market adjacent to the British le- gation, made night hideous to those who could do nothing but listen and wonder what was going to happen next. 'Betsey' was so named after Lady Macdonald. This interesting gun will probably find home in the