The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-19
SECRET SOCIETIES
 OF THE ORIENT
From the Pal Mall Gazette.

From the Pail Mall Gazette.
 The public has scarcely heard of Chinese secret societies since the col lapse of the Boxer revolt. Even those who take interest in this curious sub ject have seldom found an allusion to 1t in the news from the far east. It
 might we'll be supposed that in colo
 nies at least these evil associations had
 been reduced to impotence. if they can
 not be suppressed But the sharp little
 fight at Kuala Lumpur just reported
 shows that they are still active and de liant; indeed I recall no former case where a gathering of members has re-
 sisted with firearms. Is this another fl- lustraton of the results of the Japan csc triumph?
 Kuala Lumpur is the port of Perak a large and fourishing town of its sort. inhabited by Chinamen, Malays and Tamils-peaceful emigrants from south
 ern India. who work on the plantations in the neighborhood Secret societies are forbidden there, as everywhere else in the Malay countries; but three or four days ago the authorities learned that meeting was to be held in temple, The Chinamen did not wait to be attack ed-when the police came in sight they opened fire, and, though defeated with a loss of 25 prisoners they wounded the | European inspector and a Sikh constable severely. We hear that the Chinamen were dressed in red. significant novelty.
 But the whole incident is novel. It was the turbulence of the Hueys. as these societies are called, which obliged
 Sir Andrew Clark, governor of the Straits settlement, to occupy Perak in 1888. at the instance of the RaJah--Malay, of
 course. The mines there had attracted not less than 5O,0Oo Chinamen, an army quite beyond the control of any Malay government The Rajah of Perak did not try to govern them; they were care full to pay his dues. and he left them alone. Individually, doubtless, the China men were excellent fellows industrious and good natured, content with a little gamble and little opium after the hard
 days work. But they all belonged to the Hueys These, in their raison d'etre, are benefit societies and cooperative stores, admirably managed. with the ex
 perience of countless generations Their , evil practices are an excrescence, kept most scrupulously apart from the regu- lar business.
 | Rival trade unions never lack grounds of quarrel But the Hueys in Perak- something less than half dozen think | were offshoots of parent societies long established at Penang. on British terri l tory And these latter were divided into l two factions. savagelv hostile From the | time of its foundation almost, the great | and wealthy city of Penang was dis | turbed at no long intervals by series | of murderous engagements between 1 bodies In the streets. White residents | bore the affliction as If 1t were an un- | avodable calamity, to which man Is sub l ject in the far east. Singapore, still
 greater. and still more wealthy, suffered worse on the whole until the last intol-
 erable outrage. But if the hostile Hueys
 ventured to carry on like this under the | guns of the British fleet, with regiments
 of British soldiers within call, we can
 imagine their proceedings in Perak.
 where there was actually no force to
 restrain or punish them. The various
 sections up and down took the fight as
 the employment of this leisure, and | fighting meant killing. At holiday time
 they concentrated for real battles. Sir Hugh Low officially credited the state
 ment that soOoO men were engaged in an
 action at Ti-pang, when 2000 perished.
 Their bones were turned up in laying out
 tennis ground 15 years after.
 These glorious victories and shameful | defeats found an echo. naturally. at
 Penang-the mothers demonstrating in
 sympathy with their offspring. Excite l ment grew from year to year and trouble
 
 occurred. Then Chinamen showed what
 they could do in the way of courage and l determination. Though the troops were 1 called out at an early stage they did
 not cease fighting one another for more
 than a week. A thousand at least were l burnt.
 1 Something had to be done. A district 1 grand master and some high officials of
 the Hueys were prosecuted for conspir- l acy to murder and convicted. But the | colonial office still refused to take mo- l tice of the societies. Two years after l ward a riot even more renowned in the l annals of the Straits broke ont at Singa-
 pore. Then. at last, the intelligent gen
 tlemen safe in Whitehall consented to the
 registration of the Hueys-but no more 1 Not till 1898 were they surpressed-nomi-
 nally. At that date the official return | gave il secret societies in Singapore. with
 1122 office-bearers and 63,376 members; in l Penang five societies with 361 office-bear-