The Importation of Arms into China from Hongkong.
120 mann.
As usual, the German firms in Hongkong are engaged in this business, and the chief of them appear to be Meyers, Sienssen, Carlowitz and Lutgens Einst.
The Compradore of the latter firm has just quarrelled and left them, and has supplied me with a lot of information on the subject of smuggling arms—a subject on which he is very well informed as he is partner with another Chinaman by name Yao Fu, who also holds a license, and does a bigger business than anybody.
The Compradore tells me that there are now stored in the godowns of the various firms here about 20,000 Mauser Rifles, and they are smuggled out at rare intervals in batches of four or five thousand, and the business is a very paying one, as the rifles can be bought from the German firms for eight or ten dollars apiece and fetch when landed on Chinese territory twenty-five to thirty dollars.
Under the Act it is permissible to transfer rifles from one go-down to