BLES.
ER.
?
September 5.
question whether
Shenandoah.
The
arsuing its lighter
September 5. mption that the ndoah by another of the opinion loss of a warship, acement.-Reuter's
September 5. doah, which the m in determining the possession of
EROPLANES.
September 5. Spanish squadrons for the past three has been effected. n front indicating Reuter.
September 6. ing is general all and is especially their attacks with ur main operations
September 6. ncreasing on both ed. An American ment of Sheshuan.
ARSHIP.
nt.
September 5. m the Australian reports that white
+
September 5.
ave picked up a hundred miles ing seaplane was
the Department egoing. Reuter's
TE LABOURS.
September 5. en meeting at the hection with the will leave London It is repected meet a fortnight
September 5. nisters met last 10 Я prospective ity Pact, to which euter understands end and proposes
L NEGLIGENCE.
September: 6. Chief of the Air
eration," charging
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1925.
LATEST CANTON
OUTRAGE.
BRITISH JOURNALISTS INCARCERATED
BY STRIKERS.
SEVENTEEN HOURS CHAINED IN A CELL.
RESCUED BY WHAMPOA CADETS...
The latest outrage by an undisciplined mob in Canton is described in the following story by our special representative who went to Canton by the s.s. Honam on Thursday. Also on the 'ship was another newspaperman and they both returned to Hongkong yesterday after going through adventures which might easily have To be followed down the whole length of proved terribly serious. the Canton Bund pursed by a crowd of thousand of strikers calling for their lives and then to be imprisoned in a fetid, filthy Chinese prison cell shackled in chains for 17 hours with fourteen other pri- soners, all Chinese, are some of things which happened to the people concerned, who were Mr. J. S. Cox of the Hongkong Daily Press and Mr. F. Oliver of the S. C. M. Post.
They were taken by strikers after going ashore to get off a cable to Hongkong announcing the safe arrival ofthe s.s. Honam, and were only released on Saturday morning when Consular officials arrived at the Staff Headquarters of the Whampoa Cadets to convey them back to Shameen. Kasuta
A notable thing about the incident is the pains to which the Cadet
the order to protect
two officers and officials put themselves in
But for that assistance it journalists from the anger of the mob.
appears very doubtful whether Messrs. Cox and Oliver would have arrived back safely or even alive.
The whole story is told below by Mr. Oliver who, with his colleague, returned to Hongkong yesterday by the Honani.
On Shameen.
the ancient armoury but one does not question authority when it is well armed.
The ship arrived at 3.45 and within the next quarter of an hour we were landed on Shameen by a It was thought we were armed Customs launch. We spent two and one filthy criminal-looking hours there, making enquiries as to individual began to run over my and means of person. A sharp push sent him cabling facilities reaching Canton and returning to flying and for a second or so it look- I let Shameen. The difficulties were ex-ed as if I asked for trouble. plained to us but our obvious duty appeared to be to get a cable off and we were told pretty authorta- tively that in daylight we would not be molested. A motor boat landed us at 6.30 p.m. at Customs wharf, promising to return at 7.30.
In Canton.
On the Bund a dozen rickshaws
clamoured to be hired and we were generally received in friendly fashion. We rode down the Bund which had every appearance of
normal business.
We reached the Chinese Y.M.C.A. and went in to ask for information. An English speaking Chinese wrote in Chinese the address of the cable office. Armed with this we drove back to the Post Office and there hired a coolie to guide us down the narrow streets of Sal-kwan. There we were treated to friendly glances and were directed by a well-to-do Chinese who spoke English. Our cables were handed in and we were promised that they would go with out fail. Our coolie conducted us back the way we had gone and we got back to Customs Wharf at 8.15. All the time we had been treated well and no possibility of trouble
our heads at all. entered promised motor boat was not there which, as we were 45 minutes late, was not to be wondered at. We
The
imagined the owner thought we had got a boat back to the s.8. Honam.
At the English Bridge. Outside on the Bund we tried to get a sampan but failed, all the boat people being afraid to take us either to the s.a. Honam or to the Shameen.
The question of returning then began to assume a serious aspect. We walked along Sha Ki to the English bridge and hailed the other side. We explained, through the darkness, our position and asked to
the only semi-decent looking per- son there see I was unarmed and and this fact was communicated We were to the crowd outside. in the hands of the strikers al- then unaware though we were of it.
endeavours to get near us but we were ushered into the other build- ing untouched. There a dozen of our captors with half a dozen words of English endeavoured to question us. Asked who and what we were and how and why we visited Canton we explained and at this juncture I did a foolish
my thing. I wrote
name and address in Chinese characters, about all I know of the Chinese language.
one After that no would believe I couldn't speak it and this may have led to some of the rough treatment we received.
The Rabble's Demands. There was much talk of a
"charge" against us, we being told we were up there as spies to find out what we could. We were told
NOTICE
We have been appointed Sole agent
in
Hongkong and South China
for
WHYTE AND MACKAY'S SPECIAL
9
we should be taken to the Police SELECTED HIGHLAND
Station and we protested in vain
that we were good men and an- xious to do no harm.
But our captors' aims were de- feated on the point by the still clamouring crowd outside. Ask- ing when we were going we were told it was impossible for some time because the crowd wanted to harm us. So there we sat on a bed while a dozen or so of the famous or infamous Whampoa Cadets filed in and surrounded us with fixed bayonets.
Efforts to Break In. The mob made many efforts to break in but were repulsed. On two occasions a whistle demanded silence while someone addressed
the mob in the fashion of Antony, These orations had an effect for a grew time but the clamouring louder and it was evident they were demanding our blood.
It was at this point that the chains made their apperance.
About ten feet long, heavy, and with a huge lock of Chinese pat- champed about tern these were our necks almost as tight as one wears a collar but, be it believed, with much less comfort.
The impulse to resist to the uttermost was strong and had to
The Bund Procession. At 10 p.m. after an uncomfort-be fought with all our strength. able hour in the fish shop, we were put into rickshaws and told we were going to Tung Yin to get passports, a thing we believed to be true.
As the name implies Tung Yin easternmost part of is at the the city and that ride along the Bund in brilliant moonlight will be
corner.
us
The reason for holding us was made obvious. We were in the hands of anti-foreign strikers and those who spoke English did not fail to tell us why the mob, outside We were were clamouring for us. briefly told they all remembered that over 100 Chinese were killed on Sha Ki and were angry.
Put in Jail.
one not easily forgotten.
My friend had a watch and Anything more like a ride to the guilotine in the tumbrils would noticed that this was at 12.30 a.m. Two antern Apparently the crowd were told of be hard to imagine. bearers proceeded us demanding what was done for a few minutes free passage and armed men ac- later we were ordered to march. side. Each with a jailer holding our on either companied About our little cavalcade surged chains we passed out through a lane a tremendous multitude of Chin- of Cadets drawing as much atten- ese, a mob which gathered hundreds tion as a Lord Major on November more to itself at every street 9th but with a little less dignity.. Holding rifles with fixed bayonets Gesticulating, brandishing sticks horizontally the Cadets forced back maddened crowd which and shouting they made constant the attempts to surround us and their gesticulated in threatening manner as, like condemned murderers, we intentions were only too obvious.
The Strike Guard.
were marched to our prison.
We passed in. Inside the build- armed guards worked strenously and effectively to keeping had been built three bamboo them back. Everyone gave way cages, each of which was full of to us, policemen,
and Chinese prisoners. We were push- all traffic. The overpowering, ed into the middle one in which smothering force of a huge crowd were fourteen prisoners so that we made altogether sixteen people in a swept us forward as flotsam on the crest of a wave. How the space precisely ten feet by fifteen. crowd was prevented from carry-
One electric light glimmered in a The floor was covered with ing out its intention of greviously corner. harming us we shall never know rattan mats and we wearily sank on the few square feet of space but we to know that the armed guards worked like tropjans to cleared for us. preserve our skins.
Our
soldiers
be allowed to risk the barbed wire pace, lasted for 45 minutes but the situation too deep for words
entanglements and
climb along.
This ghastly ride, at walking
one had enough detachment to
Our Fellow Prisoners. There was a hopelessness about
but we brightened considerably This we were told was impossible notice, the glarious night and the when one prisoner addressed us in hey, and criminal and a voice with a Naval flavour line of Chinese gunboats in the English. The guards ordered no tration of national informed us of the absolute in- river, headed by the Wing Fung. cted by non-flying desirability of unwinding approxi- "lives of airmen mately five miles of barbed wire and airmen themselves that a boat was the only way of
Mr. Mitchell getting back. ailable to airmen, bages."-Ruter's
20
September 5. rly in November
talking but lying back I could
At the bridge leading out of converse with him in quiet tones. the city we turned to the left and He said he and his fellow prisoners tntly came to a big headquar-were good men that they had been
ters, built of matshed material.
caught at Shunchun after walking from Canton and had been incar-
in that filthy stench-i cerated
more than a ridden prison for month. He said he himself used to work for Shewan Tomes and for Dodwell's but that was some time
Kill the Foreigners.
cry
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A False Friend.
Scene at Tung Yin, Another visit to the Bund at the Ushered in we found ourselves Customs Wharf failed to produce a still surrounded by uneducated boat and at the suggestion of my looking people of the coolie class friend we were about to go to the and obviously no official was there, Hotel Asia to get a boat or to spend A dozen or a score of them ap- the night when a Chinese in Europeared to have equal authority. ago. In the cell with us were two pean clothes and speaking a little There was much arguing and of the painters who were kidnapped English asked' what we required. writing of documents.
we wanted, offering to buy food We gave
while painting the bridge at Shum- utter surprize the money was hand-
ed back to us.
if we would give them money. We briefly explained and he offered
Į up hope of that pass and merely chun some weeks ago. assistance. A crowd collected as
Uncertain Fate. waited patiently for developments.
produced a dollar note and in one only Chinese crowds can and do.
All this time the crowd clustered The uncertainly of our fate was Beseiged in a Matshed.
course four eggs appeared alone. Asked if we had passes from the Outside the building the crowd round the prison and our fellow such that we determined not to We swallowed them somehow.and Chinese authorities to be there we surged, calling for something that prisoner was able to translate their sleep but as time wore on I found I then appeared a small packet or said no and politely asked if there boded only ill for us. Ugly faces clamouring. Their one was could not resist and abandoned biscuits, a bunch of bananas and were any authorities to get one appeared at crevices all round the "kill the foreigners" to which the myself to a few hours rest. Day-two bottles of sarsaparilla-tepid. from and where the office was. He place and I suppose we heard reinforced guard replied "You can- light was never more welcome We did our best with this suppl promised to take us and said that, more oaths and flowery epithets not while we are here." This noise although it only come through a but handed on the bottles of drink September 5. having done so, we could get a
than ever before in our lives. It was night-long.
hole in the top of the wall about to our fellow prisoners. the departure motor boat back to Shameen with- was well for our tempers that we There is comradeship between a square foot in size.
That morning the prison doctor erengaria, which out difficulty.
understood not a word. The prisoners whether innocent or We had had no food since tiffin came in and examined all who were ninety-seven per
Crowd Turns Nasty.
whole of the time we were in guilty and our fellows at once came the previous day and at 10 a.m. on sick and later sent in their medicine We He requested us to step into an captivity we had constantly to forward with mats to lie on and Friday when the prisoner's meal-western medicine at that. adjacent salt fish shop and there a guard ourselves by holding in empty tins on which to place our came in we found we could not were well and declined his proffered number of Chinese workers wear-justifiable anger-as one indignity heads. There
diversion touch it. We asked for water and ministrations. ing badges of some description was heaped upon another
when our captors came in and at 10.30 a saucepan full with two appeared, most of them armed with The writing of documents ceased demanded all our money. Between basins to drink from appeared. It ancient carbines. Things began to and we were escorted from one us we had $200 and this was care- was then about fourteen hours eptember 5. look serious particularly as a huge building to another. In the fully counted and we were made to since we were captured. Later in of Parliament crowd outside clamoured for admis- shadows of the Tung Yin garden write on papers our names and the morning our jailors become worried sion and had to be threatened with odd figures dodged in and out in amount in our possession. To our at our refusing food and asked what
3.
VED.
was
Escape Possibilities,
As we lay in the stifling atmos- with chains chafing our necks and wearing us down we discussed the (Continued on page 10.)
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213
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