and servants.
people to the injury of the place. At first in Houghing those who joined were bad characters and combined their strength to insult people; but afterwards workmen joined to control their masters, and even masters thought to control their servants by joining the Society. At the present time even little boys in unknown numbers enter such associations. Although the Government has taken measures against the evil, it has not been rooted out.
If the growth is not stopped, robbery and violence will increase to the secret detriment of all honest people. It is constantly heard that persons insulted by them dare not resent or inform they suffer worse. If they resent not, all right; but if they resent, a signal is given, and a crowd of adherents come clamoring from all directions, and the injured are glad to suppress their feeling and take the wrong. If they bring a charge, all right; but if they do, they dare not resent it or they will suffer worse. Is it not a bitter lot? But all this is only hearsay. Now for what has been seen.
A cook upset a vegetable hawker's stall and kicked him, balance of a difference about the weight. The hawker dared not resist for fear of the Society. There was an offender taken before the secret tribunal of the Triads and on point of being executed, when he was rescued by a friend. This wife was weeping in search of him, when a Policeman met her and asked why she wept. She did not dare to speak plainly; and the Policeman knowing the power of the Society did not pursue the case, but paused.
There was a hawker who got talking with his brethren about the Triads, when some of them came and cut his hand severely, and beat him.
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