Canton may be considered the centre. What are styled "piracies,"
but which may be more properly described as gang-robberies,
brigandage and blackmailing, are of almost daily occurrence
on the rivers and creeks, while clan fights and armed defiance
of the Authorities, not amounting to actual rebellion, are rife
in almost every direction.
The Authorities from various causes do not
deal effectually with this outragious state of affairs,
and in my opinion, one of the chief reasons why they fail to
put down all this lawlessness is the fact that the persons con-
cerned are to all intents and purposes as well armed and much
more numerous than any force the Provincial Government, without
costly, strenuous and long continued efforts can bring to bear
against them.
There is no question whatever that the
foreign arms of precision, rifles, revolvers and pistols with
which the criminal portion of the population is armed and the
ammunition with which it is supplied, come, if not directly, at
anyrate in the first instance from the Colony of Hongkong. No
doubt much of the munitions of war sold in Hongkong are legiti-
mately imported from the Colony on behalf of the Provincial Govt.
and a portion is also purchased under its sanction by local
communities ostensibly to arm the Train Bands and for their
own protection. But there is not the least doubt that these
latter