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In case of sickness one mark per day will be
taken away from the wages and you will not be allowed
to retum to the house for rest but will be driven out
of it and required to cut and carry grass no medi-
cine being given you. If you do not recover in a few
days you will be hit and kicked and if you are still
not recovered in a week or ten days you will be car-
ried out in the street and receive strokes with a
cane, I cannot describe the bitterness of the sighs
of the sick. Besides the food is hard to be eaten;
four men sit at a table with a bowl of salmon each
day;
at breakfast only one biscuit and a half are
given to each man, at luncheon bananas and tare are
eaten and supper consists of boiled rice and beans.
Those who take this food have weakness in legs and
and are forced to make another contract at the
wages of twenty marks. When I left Hongkong to
come here I was hoping that Chan Wa nephew of Chan
Leung Yan would come with me; so that we could
each take care of the other in all matters and be-
come rich. But now it has not turned out so, for
he has been bribed by the foreigners and forgets
that I am his countryman, regarding me as an insect
and inflcts heavier punishment on me, so that I
have not the least place to rest my foot on.
though I have a mouth I cannot speak. We are living
in Shan Pui and can be compared with the fish caught
Alas,
for three years.
Besides the master is very wicked;
over ten men have been beaten to death and the mumber
by the net, the meat on the chopping block, the bird
confined in the cage, or the ox under the yoke.
think of returning to China, but I am as far away as
the uttermost part of the earth from the horizon.
would plunge into the river to drown myself, but for
my parents at home who are so kind to me and for
I
I
of deaths cannot be counted.
my brothers whom I love.
Now I have no way
to go
At present there are more
swelled stomachs.
I do not think that I can live
than two hundred men whose term of three years has
expired but who are not allowed to return to China
and
to heaven nor a way into the ground. What I hope is
that the spirits of my ancestors will, secretly help
me