The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-23

up warm blue silk coat, full length
 stands erect at six-foot- 1.-two and holds
 from shoulder to ankles, lined through
 out with foxskn and embroidered or
 the outside with silk.
 We are expecting the winter shortly
 and tailoring Is rather at premium.
 How much shall say for this beau.
 tiful foxskin coat?" says Richard.
 His phrases are not much varied; in ! fact you know what he is going to say
 before he opens his mouth. He turns the long cloak back to front and vice versa, and his white shirtsleeve drops down to his shoulder as he lifts the fox skin we'll off the ground.
 1.-TWO dollars" says an Indian dealer, with reckless prodigality. The article is worth thirty dollars, or six pounds, in any part of the world.
 Three dollars" says corporal of marines from the outer ring.
 Four says a colonel, seated on one of the forms in the inner ring.
 Five" from an American war cor respondent. It has never before been discovered that press correspondents were men Of means, but this loot auc- tion draws them out.
 "Six!" shouts Dr. Dudgeon from the form. He knows the value of things, and people smile. So the bidding runs up to twenty.
 Going for twenty! Gone! Name please? Oh, pr. Dudgeon. Didn't know 1t was you sir, or I would have sent the bidding higher"
 Whereat the company laughs Dr. Dudgeon is not the man to pay too much. Then there is put up a piece of Chinese ink or chunk of bird nest soup, solid and dirty, or dozen arti- cles may have just been sold in success sion at less than half their market value, this trifie will be run up to a ri- diculous figure. Its intrinsic value is less to European than that of a sin- gle bracebutton (which, indeed, is sometimes precious possession in the circumstances) but the company is seized with the hunor of the thing
 Every afternoon except Sundays these scenes occur under the colonade in front of the British legation. Sir Claude Macdonald is frequently among the crowd, and General Gaselee, Gene ral Barrow and the officers of the staff together with colonels, majors, cap- tains and subalterns warrant officers non-coms. and men, Sikhs and Royal Marines Royal Engineers and Welsh Fusiliers, Japanese, Punjabis and Ba- luchis and Indian camp followers, Chi nese traders and even coolies, with a sprinkling of American officers and men, and Germans. The sale is free and open to every one who chooses to come The Russians and the French do not choose to come.
 That is loot systematized This Chi na expedition affair has been the big gest footing excursion since the days of Pizarro. There are different ways of footing, and the other nationalities have not pursued the English way, but all are agreed that loot is the correct card It had to be. Picking was wealthy and populous city, full of big houses, busy marts, thriving banks, large warehouses and crowded pawn shops. Half the population rushed helterskelter through the northern and western gates when the troops entered by the southern and eastern. Those who fled took with them what they could carry, and buried, or attempted to conceal, the best part of what they had to leave behind.
 But thousands of pounds worth of was left derelict, with no like- lihood of it's owners coming to claim it. On the entry of the troops an honest
 J~ t.,r 1, TO,,i+ +ial, to keep his troops within bounds The Indian troops, in partic- | ular. required tight rein. But there l lay the unclaimed, ownerless, portable | and meanwhile Russians, | French and Germans were freely gath | ering it in, as well as the Chinese them | selves as soon as they gathered cour | age to invade the empty houses.
 It became clear that the virtuous ab- | stinence of the British troops from the | appropriation of goods would not in the | least help the former rightful owners, and as many of these must have been | Darticipators in the Boxer attacks their goods would, in any case, be liable to confiscation. This was the situation when the British troops were given to bring in what they could find.
 While the wealthy houses and the crowded pawnshops were stripped of their silks and furs, the poor mans was spared, and men found ooting beyond bounds were court mar .ialed. The coolies necessary goods and chattels, his baskets, his wretched his needles and thread, even lis paltry ornaments of artificial flow ITS and cheap voses were left as they stood. Though gratitude Is not per- laps the strongest pint in the Chinese character, I cannot but think that this step, which did no one any harm, did to enhance the reputation of