Crittenden press. [volume] (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, 1901-05-23
LETTER FROM CHINA.
What a Crittenden County Boy
Thinks Of the CelestiaIs.
ToNKU, CHINA, !
March 26, 1901. {

valuable columns of your paper /
will endeavor to tell the many of
my friends who read your paper
of China and soldiers life in the
far East.
First of all | will tell you of the
natives. The first thing to come
to my mind is the exceeding low
price at which they work. The
United States government had
somewhere near thousand ma
tives working for it and the price
they pay them is only equal to 10
cents day, and they make a great
deal of money in their estimation.
The POOREST man in our great Uni
ted States would think this was
nothing; but of course these poor
coolies never knew what wages
were until this war. This has been
the cause of giving the poor Chi
nese chance, and of keeping the
rich down; for no coolie who is
able to work need be without it
now, but they have such crude
and odd ways doing things now.
For instance, the only way they
have of transporting freight is the
two wheeled carts and the wheel
barrow; in the cart they work from
one to four mules, and many times
Iyou see a Chinese with two or
three COWS and one or two mules,
as the case may be, and all these
carts are bearers of soac, heavy
burden, such as coal and wood; but
the wheelbarrows carry all the
merchandise, and on these there
are three coolies, two for pulling
and one for the handles; the wheel
is three feet in diameter and the
frame is just balanced on it, so
that when it is loaded it does not
bear down on the man who does
the work in the shafts or handles
of the wheelbarrow.
The way they have of transport
ting freight on the Pei-ho river is
by junks. These are very odd
looking crafts. They are loaded
at Tong Ku with various classes of
merchandise and put forth for the
forts up the river; most of them
go to Tein Tsin and Pekin. The
way these boats are propelled is
by rope reaching from the mast
head to the bank of the river; then
the coolies put harness on them,
make it fast to the main line, and
in this way they propel their un-
couth looking junks. They work
just like horses.
l only tell you of these few char |,
acteristics of these strange people
to give you some idea of the ma
ton that challenged the world for
fight and got accommodated; but
they got more than they had bar
gained for.
l will now endeavor to tell you
of the different nationalities who
are involved here. 1 will take
them as 1 think they stand in the
estimation of the Chinese;
First are the Boys in Blue"
They are respected and loved by
every one over here, except the
French; but no ONE can get along
with those fellows. But they can't
handle the boys in blue. They will
not try to whip an American un-
less there is five or six to one, and
all the Frrnch carry side arms and
our boys have nothing but the
weapons the Lord provided them
with, but they always manage to
get Frenchman's arms, some way
and each time one of them loses
their side arms they get five years
in prison. But theylhave not got
enough grit to keep them. For
instance night or two ago at Tein
Tsin four Fre,chmen attacked a
sick sentry; the sentry was unar-
med at tbs time but he took the