Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1904-01-22
INDIFFERENCE TO LIFE.
chinamen Willing to Be Shot for Trif
ling Remuneration.

chinannen Willing to Be Shot for Trif.
ling Remuneration.
A number Of foreign officers who
were shooting snipe in the rice fields
back of the village Of Wei-hai-wei,
China, were responsible for series OF
peculiar accidents not long ago. The
kind of fowl they brought down were
pigtails instead Of feathers, and were
distinctly game" in one sense Of the
word.
The first day they set out one Of
the officers, German Of high rank,
shot Chinese laborer by mistake. It
was a slight flesh wound In the arm,
but the laborer was highly incensed,
and made wordy attack In unintelli-
gible lingo on the officer.
"He says he will be laid of for a
week and is asking you for money"
explained an interpreter. The crowd
was not especially flush at the time,
but coin to the amount Of IS was rails
ed on the spot and given to the Chi
nese. The latter was fully appeased,
and went off the envied superior OF
his less fortunate brethren. Five dol
lars is a good round sum to the aver
age Chinese laborer, who draws a pit
tance so small that an American would
be ashamed to take the money.
The officer was not molested or re-
buked for the shooting. It was plain
ly an accident, but even II 1t had not
been 1t is doubtful II any action would
have been taken in the matter. Chi
nese life Is scarcely at a premium In
Wei-hai-wei, which Is as poverty
stricken a Chinese village as can be
found on the map. The natives live
from hand to mouth. They are a stall
wart tribe, many Of them standing
six feet In height, and are much dark
er skinned than the southern Mongo-
lians. They are good to look at,
healthy and muscular, but are abso-
lutely and entirely without ambition.
They are stolid to a limitless degree;
utterly Indifferent to physical pain, and
seemingly incapable Of mental anguish.
A story is told Of one man who caught
his foot In a trap set for some animal,
and calmly lay down and slept until
his fellows came to rescue him. Later
the foot was amputated and the man
killed himself because he was unable
to make living thus crippled, and his
relatives were too poor to support him.
Suicide seems to be panacea for all
evils to the Chinese, and he generally
chooses some horrible torture for his
taking off. In this instance the man
who owned the trap sent a compensa-
tion to the family Of the unfortunate
fellow, and the next day two OF the
sons Of this Chinese were found with
their left arms caught in similar traps!
It is proverbially unwise to give dam
ages or rewards to Chinese, but the
German officer and his friends were
slow in realizing the fact, and came
near having long list Of crimes on
their consciences.
The island Of Wei-hai-wei, which is a
summer resort in the Yel-
low sea, lies about a mile from the vii
lage of the same name. It Is patronized
almost exclusively by foreign naval Of
ficers and their families. Hunting is
the main pastime Of the officers, who
are all off duty, Of course, and enjoying
a few months vacation. There are no
written game laws in China, but there
is a social code that Is vigorously lived
up to by foreigners. Native Chinese
shoot where and when they please, but
a white man caught shooting out OF
season Is blackballed by the clubs OF
which he is a member and Is complete
ly ostracized by society. The Chinese
bird shot is made Of scrap iron cut into
bits. It Is extremely hard on the
teeth and highly indigestible. A Chi
nese considers shot bird unfit for
eating; therefore he traps birds for his
own table and shoots those he takes to
market. Wise John! Birds are ex-
tremely cheap in China, a good-sized
quail bringing only a few cents. The
natives find 1t far more profitable to
carry bags for the foreigners than to
shoot birds themselves.
The Island Of Wei-hai-wei Is built
up ON a thoroughly modern plan. 1t
boasts q first-class hotel and number
of artistic bungalows, that stand out
in striking contrast to the mud huts
of the village. But the village Is, on
the whole, far more picturesque than
the island. The huts, which are fash
ioned Of mud and stone, remind ore
strongly Of the adobe shacks set up by
the Mexicans along our western coast.
They seem to have stood just as they
are for a thousand years. And a little
beyond the village, twenty miles to
the right, is an old-fashioned walled-in
city, the Inhabitants Of which are lit
tie less progressive than are the vii
layers, for the latter have at least been
able to see opportunities for adding
to their incomes through the foreign
invasion from the island.
The report that one man had re-
ceived IS for a mere flesh wound In
the arm spread like wildfire through
the village. A few days later an Eng
lish captain, aiming low in order to
strike a bird lowering near a baited
trap, brought another laborer to the
ground. The man sprung into sight
just as the officer pulled the trigger,
and received the shot full in the thigh.
The wound proved serious in this case.
The Englishman had the man carried