Across China on Foot

by Edwin John Dingle

The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year. Now—in June of 1910—I have to write of enormous improvements and revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Yün-nan is still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining question, are still "in the air"—the unknown x in the equation, as it were—but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will, her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the destiny of Yün-nan herself, and she is working hard—the West has no conception how hard—so as to be able to be in a position of safeguarding—vigorously, if necessary—her own borders.

One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion, would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Yün-nan. Skirmishings on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and for drilling him so hard and long.

What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to be true also of Tali-fu.

A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many, necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks—a sign in itself of the altered conditions of the times—and I visited some extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty thousand gold dollars.

Military progress in this "backward province" is as great as it has been anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.

THE POLICE

Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the necessary evil of a standing army, so did Yün-nan-fu slumber on in the Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material, the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be "run in" in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn kind—that is, if the Yün-nan police shall ever have made strides towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover—when will the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?—is certainly being put down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.

THE GAOL

A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor, wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in Yün-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent prison—one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.

After we had drunk each other's health—I sincerely trust that the cute, courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely mundane things—I was led away to the prison proper.