Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1890 — HIGHWAY ROBBERY. [ARTICLE]

HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

Celestial Footpads Who Are Driven to Their Vocation by Poverty. North China Herald. The excessive poverty of the mass of the people, and the density of the population, make the presence of a large number of bad characters in any particular plaoe a matter of certainty. The restraints of the local government are not sufficiently rigorous in most regions to keep these bad characters in anything more than a general state of subordination. If any event happens which makes it peculiarly safe for them to plunder with more than usual impunity, they are sure to take advantage of the fact. The autumn harvest ik such an event. The whole surface of North China is > -dotted~-bere and there with growths es sorghum (kaoliang), a plant which nature ha 9 apparently devised. ing the wants of that region, just as the palm and bamboo are adapted to the tropics. The sorghum pLant grows to a great height, often eight or ten feat. By the middle of July it has attained aueh a growth that it is hard to see over il, and from that time until the harvest is gathered it is a common occurrence for the natives of the villages to become confused, even in going short distances from one town to another. If, by any accident, a wrong; turning is taken, the traveler is as much lost as in a tropical foiest, with the disadvantage that he can notolimb a tree to see his way out. Of this state of things the bad characters are not slow to take advantageTraveling “across oountry” becomes at such times difficult and dangerous, nbtl so much because it is hard to find the way, as becausethere is great liability to be robbed, and a great probability that if one is so attacked one will not he able to obtain assistance. The! small bands of unkempt soldiers—tho; only provisions for keeping order ini any particular region—have some resemblance to eleotricity, not in the rapidity or decision of their movements, but in the ciroumstenee that they afe, an altogether invisible force. They; are never on hand when wanted, and! are often non-existent. But when the kaoliang crop comes up to its full height these wretohed troops are at the maximum of their uselessness. They cannot see far ahead of them on account of the dense forerts of kaoliang; and if they came on a large band of thieves in full course of gathering their plunder, and if they decided, to attempt to stop the proceedings—a wild and improbable supposition—it would bo wholly put of the question to do so, as the thieves would retreat into these kaoliang jungles, where no mounted soldier could follow for two| rods. The result of this state of things is that in some districts the kaoliang tiipe iB one of fear and trembling for those who are obliged to go abroad. The arrival of a stranger at this season is the signal for a plot to stop ; him and strip him of any superfluous baggage, and often of the most of hi»> clothing. This plunder of travelers is a well-recognized industry of some districts, and, is at its maximum during the comparatively idle intervals when the crops have been hoed for the last time and are not yet ripe. There are certain perfectures where the population seems to take kindly to this oocuoation at almost any season of the year. Tn these regions tho farmer in the field who sees a stranger comifag along the road will sally forth to rob him, armed with his hoe, and, when ne has plundered his victim, go quietly back to his work as if nothing bad happened.