Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 105, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1899 — Fun in the Philippines. [ARTICLE]

Fun in the Philippines.

A typical Yankee trick was played on the enemy over at Paombong the other day. There is a church over there, which is just across a narrow stream from the house occupied by our extreme left outpost of twenty-eight men from Battery H, Third United States Artillery, who are serving here as Infantry. The sentry on on the church side of the river conceived the idea of tying a long rope to the clapper of the bell in the belfry, carrying the rope over to his post in the road. Just as he had anticipated, the Filipinos came sneaking down close to the church the other morning, an hour or so before daylight. The sentry heard them coming, and promptly rang the bell. In a twinkling the Filipinos Opened on the belfry, and that and the church are now well dented by bullets. The outposts refrained from answering the fire, which was doing no harm, but after every volley at the belfry the sentry with the rope gave the bell two or three frantic peals. Believing the outposts to be still in the belfry and sorely pressed, the insurrectos crept nearer and poured in, as they thought, a still more deadly fire. All this time the men of the outpeets kept quiet, noting just where the enemy were. At daylight our soldlerstopened so briskly that sixty or seventy Filipinos found their error and hit the road briskly back to their own outpost, carrying several wounded men with them. The handy rope has been extended to reach across the river.—Leslie’s Weekly.