Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Typographical errors have been silently corrected.
[Illustration: THE DISPATCH BOAT “FRANCE” LYING AT ANCHOR IN ODESSA
HARBOR]
THE CABLE GAME
THE ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN
PRESS-BOAT IN TURKISH WATERS
DURING THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
BY
STANLEY WASHBURN
[Illustration]
BOSTON
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1911
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY
TO
ALICE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The writer gratefully acknowledges
the constant support and unlimited
backing accorded him by THE CHICAGO
DAILY NEWS, the paper for which he
worked, and MR. VICTOR F. LAWSON,
its Publisher, whose never failing
enterprise in the realms of World
News made this narrative of
THE CABLE GAME possible.
S. W.
INTRODUCTION
It has seemed worth while to set down the account of the experiences
reported in the following pages, not because they represent any
important achievement, nor yet because they are conspicuous for any
unusual enterprise, for none realizes better than the writer that they
comprise nothing more than the day’s work, for the dozens of newspaper
men that wander the earth.
As a lover of the Profession these few little adventures are narrated
in the hope that they may serve as an interpretation to the lay reader
of the motives of the men that go forth to gather the news of the
world. Fame, money and reputation are all secondary considerations to
the real journalist and what he does he does for his Paper and for the
pure joy of the game that he plays.
What the writer has tried to portray is the atmosphere and fascination
of THE CABLE GAME—the game that takes a man far from home ’midst alien
races and into strange lands and makes him stake his all in his effort
to win that goal of the journalist’s ambition—A World Beat.
S. W.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
_I From War to Peace in Manchuria—Peking—A New
Assignment, “Russia Direct”—Shanghai_ 1
_II The Race for the Situation—Ceylon—Across
India—Stalled in Bombay—Russia via the Suez Canal_ 20
_III Constantinople at Last! The Threshold of the Russian
Assignment—A Nation in Convulsion_ 35
_IV We Charter a Tug and become Dispatch Bearers of His
Britannic Majesty and Learn of Winter Risks in the
Black Sea too late to Retreat_ 54
_V We sail out into the Black Sea in the Salvage Steamer
“France” and for Sixty-five Hours Shake Dice with
Death_ 73
_VI We Land in Odessa on the Day Set by the
Revolutionists for a General Massacre, but because
of Effective Martial Law Secure only a “General
Situation” Story_ 94
_VII The France does her Best in the Run for the
Uncensored Cable, Sticks in the Mud, but Gets Away and
Arrives at Sulina Mouth with an Hour to Spare_ 113
_VIII We Send our Cable and Find Ourselves with 5 Francs
and Expenses of $200 a Day, but Make a Financial Coup
d’Etat, and Sail for the Crimean Peninsula_ 134
_IX We Reach Sevastopol and Land in Spite of Harbor
Regulations, Get a “Story” and Sail away with it to
the Coast of Asia Minor_ 150
_X We Send our Cable from Sinope and then Sail for the
Caucasus where Rumor States Revolution and Anarchy to
be Reigning Unmolested_ 167
_XI Christmas Morning on the Black Sea_ 180
_XII We Find Turmoil in the Caucasus but Celebrate Xmas in
Spite of Storm and Stress_ 190
_XIII We Sail away from Batuum with a Beat, Official
Dispatches, Foreign Mails and a Boat Load of Refugees
that Keep Us Awake Nights_ 200
_XIV The Return to the Golden Horn and the End of the
Assignment_ 217
TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Dispatch Boat “_France_” lying at anchor
in Odessa harbor _Frontis_
PAGE
From far Mongolia’s borders for 180 miles eastward
stretches the line of the Japanese trenches 20
Regiment after regiment, fresh from Japan, pour along
the newly made highways 20
With clanking chains and creaking limbers, batteries
are going to the front 48
In eighteen months’ association with the army, we have
not seen such activity 48
When the _France_ entered Odessa harbor after the storm
she was pretty well shaken up 92
Sulina—the mouth of the Danube River 92
General Nogi—than whom no finer gentleman ever drew
the breath of life 198
Morris inspecting our Christmas dinner 198
CHAPTER I
_From War to Peace in Manchuria—Peking—A New
Assignment, “Russia Direct”—Shanghai._
For three days we had been congratulating ourselves that we were on
the eve of the greatest battle in history. Around us in silent might,
two armies slept on their arms. From the border of far Mongolia for
a hundred and eighty miles eastward lay the line of the Japanese
trenches, and for forty miles deep every Manchu hut and village
sheltered the soldier or coolie patriot of the Island Emperor. Above
the roads for endless miles hung the heavy powdered dust of Mongol
soil; like a mist unstirred by any wind, it rose from the plodding of
the feet of limitless thousands of men and animals, pushing forward for
the last great struggle of a mighty conflict. Regiment after regiment
fresh from home, poured along the Japanese made arteries, for the blood
of an army corps. Now and again the khaki colored battalions at the
command of an officer halted at the side of the road while a battery
of artillery, with clanking chains and creaking limbers, trotted
through the thickening clouds of dust that settled on one like flour.
Cavalry, red cross, transport, coolies, bridge trains and telegraph
corps gave place the one to the other in rapid succession. In eighteen
months’ association with the Japanese we had not seen such activity.
“The Peace Conference at Portsmouth has failed” we told ourselves, and
leaving the extreme front of the army, where we had been visiting the
cavalry outposts, we turned our horses’ heads for the thirty-mile ride
to the headquarters of General Nogi, to which we had been attached
since May. All our talk was of the coming of the great battle and of
the preparations which we must make for a three weeks’ campaign in the
saddle, and more important still, how we should arrange an open line of
communications from the ever-changing front of the prospective struggle
to the cable office in the rear.
Covered with dust an eighth of an inch deep, we rode into Fakumen, our
headquarters, late on the afternoon of September 4th. At the door of a
Chinese bean mill, where for four weary months we had been awaiting the
call to action, stood a Japanese orderly. As we dismounted, he saluted
and respectfully handed me one of the Japanese charactered envelopes of
the Military field telegraph. Turning my horse over to my Japanese boy
I opened it, and read the word “Return.”
The Russo-Japanese War was over, and even before the armies themselves
knew that the end had come, my chief in his office in far away Chicago
had sent the word over the cable which meant as much as reams of
explanation. The same night the _London Times_ reached half around the
world and ordered home its special correspondent with the Japanese
armies in the field.
That night I handed in at the Chinese mudhouse, where the telegraph
ticked cheerfully over the hundreds of miles of Manchurian plains and
Korean mountains to Fusan, and thence by cable to Nagasaki and the
civilized world, a short dispatch to my office in Chicago, “Leaving the
front immediately. Wire instructions Peking.” Two days later at sunrise
we took our leave. I shall not soon forget our leave-taking from the
army whose fortunes we had followed off and on for nearly eighteen
months. So many of the correspondents left the “front” with such
bitter feelings toward their erstwhile hosts that, in justice to the
Japanese, it is but fair to chronicle that in one Army of the Mikado
at least the relations between the staff and the soldiers of the press
were anything but unpleasant, and that we, who left the Third Army
that September morning, left with only the tenderest affection toward
the commander under whose shadow we had lived, slept and thought these
many months—that is General Baron Nogi—than whom no finer gentleman,
ardent patriot and gentle friend ever drew the breath of life. The
night before our departure the general entertained us at a farewell
banquet and in a kindly little toast bade us god-speed on our journey.
That night we shook the hands of all the staff whom we had known so
well, and went to our quarters thinking that we had seen them for the
last time, for we were to leave at daybreak for the long ride to the
railroad. The next morning as we were mounting our horses to begin
our journey an orderly from headquarters rode up and said that Major
General Ichinohe (Nogi’s Chief of Staff and right-hand man during the
siege of Port Arthur) had requested that we stop at headquarters on
our way out of town. So it was that accompanied by the small cavalry
escort that had been detailed to see us to the railroad, we rode into
the compound where Nogi and his staff had lived that last long summer
of the war.
Mounted on a coal black horse in full dress uniform, with half a dozen
of his staff about him, sat old Ichinohe, a tall, gaunt man nearing
sixty, whose life typifies the ideal of Japanese chivalry. Spartan in
his simplicity and endurance, fearless as a lion in battle, and gentle
as a woman in time of peace, we had known him almost since the war
started. At Port Arthur he had commanded the Sixth Brigade of the Ninth
Division, which, more than any other, had borne the heat and burden
of the day. We had known him then, when sword in hand he had led in
person his brigade against one of the most impregnable redoubts on the
crest of that all but unconquerable fortress. Twice his column had
been thrown back shattered and bleeding, but on the third assault, and
just as the light of day was breaking in the East, this redoubtable
man covered with blood and powder, and with his broken sword clutched
in his hand, placed the Sun Flag on a position that the Russians
had regarded as beyond possibility of capture. It was impossible to
realize that this kindly old gentleman, who spoke so gently to us that
morning in distant Manchuria, was the desperate commander who had been
decorated by the Mikado for his invincible attack on the famous redoubt
before Port Arthur’s bloody trenches.
He met us with that smile which we had come to know and love, and bade
his interpreter tell us that he and his staff would ride with us out of
the town and see us started on our journey. So, with the staff riding
about us, with clatter of saber and ring of spur, we rode through the
old winding stonewall flanked street of Fakumen to the main gate of the
town. Here the road winds out over a bridge that crosses the little
river that wends its way down from the pass in the mountains three
miles beyond and through which led our way that morning. The sun had
just risen and its first copper-colored rays turned the dew on the
grass to drops of brilliants. Away and away stretched the Oriental
landscape with the hills standing out in the background in the clear,
crisp air of early autumn. Behind us lay the town which had been our
home since May, its strange, fantastic Chinese temples and maze of
jumbled dwellings just catching the early sunlight; the whole scene
might have been a setting snatched from the banks of the Jordan in the
far away Holy Land. As we rode out of the gate and onto the old wooden
bridge with its stone parapets the full strength of the Third Army
Corps Military band blazed out the first notes of Sousa’s “The Stars
and the Stripes,” and with the glorious swing of that martial strain
taken up by drum and trumpet we crossed the river. None who has never
lived for months in an alien land among a people of a different race
can ever realize the throb of the heart that such music inspires. To
us, in far off Mongolia, it sounded like a voice from our very own,
coming across the wide Pacific.
When we reached the open country our old friend stopped his horse
and his interpreter spake his last words to us. “You have been with
us long,” he told us. “With us you have lived through a terrible
period. For many months our paths have lain side by side. We would
not, therefore, say farewell, for the Japanese never says adieu to his
friends.” He had paused with the sweetest, gentlest of smiles before he
uttered his last words, which the interpreter then translated to us. “I
will sit here upon my horse, with my staff gathered about me. When you
reach the bend in the road you will turn in your saddles and wave your
hand at me and I will wave my hand to you and that, my friends, shall
be our last good-by.”
Silently we wrung their hands, these hard-visaged friends on whom a
cruel war had left its scars in gray hairs and furrowed faces, and
rode on our way. Half a mile beyond the ancient Mongol highway turned
a bluff, and wound up toward the Pass in the Hills. When we reached
the bend we turned in our saddles. There below us on the outskirts
of the town we could see the general, motionless in the flooding
sunlight, with the little group of the staff crowded in the background.
As we turned in our saddles we could barely discern the flutter of a
handkerchief from the stern old figure on the black horse. Once again
the faint strains of martial music drifted to us on the still morning
air; we waved our hands and turned once more on our way. Who shall say
that we were oversentimental if there was a little mist in our eyes as
we looked our last upon the men and on the army, whose lives and ours
had been so closely linked?
Forty miles we rode that day over dusty highways that wound their way
through waving fields of the whispering kowliang (or millet) that bent
and swayed in the breeze. A few hours’ sleep at Tieling in a deserted
shell-torn Russian house, then a five hours’ pounding over rough rails
in a box car and we were back once more at the Grand Headquarters of
the army at Moukden.
Here we paid our final respects to the officers of the staff whom we
had known off and on for nearly two years. A few hours passed, and
again we were on the train. This time it is a ten hour stretch in a
third class car to Newchwang, the end of the neutral and uncensored
cable.
In the early hours of the morning, with typewriter on my army trunk,
half a column cable was pounded out, and that afternoon the Chicago
_News_ printed the first cable from the field of what the army thought
of peace. A day’s delay in Newchwang to sell my horse, then two nights
on a B. & S. freight steamer to Chefoo, and thence by boat and rail two
days more to Peking, and a white man’s hotel. No one who has not lived
in a Chinese village, surrounded by the filth and vermin of a Manchu
compound, during the rainy season, with water trickling through the
roof on the inside and mud two feet deep without, can quite realize
what a bed, a bath, clean clothes and good “chow” means. Two hours
after arriving, a blue-clad Chinese boy handed in a cable from Chicago.
It ran: “Await further instructions, Peking.”
For the first time in nearly two years, the editor in his office ten
thousand miles away had no immediate plan of action on his mind. For
the moment the world was quiet, and a brief respite from the constant
call for “stories” granted to the correspondent.
War work for the reading public falls naturally into two distinct
classes, as different as prose and poetry in literature. Editors call
the exponents of these divisions “feature men” and “events” or “cable
men.” The former are the literary artists who write atmosphere and
artistic impressions for the monthly and weekly papers of the world.
At enormous salaries, and with the retinue and camp equipage of a
commanding general, they drift leisurely along with the army. When the
battles are over, they chronicle their impressions and send them by
mail to their home offices. They are accompanied by trained artists
of the camera, to illustrate their stories, and what is still lacking
is filled in by some artist of repute at home. Their names appear in
large letters on the covers of the magazines to which they contribute,
and to the world are they known far and wide. The other type, the
“cable men,” are collectors of what might be called “spot” news. From
them not atmosphere or color is demanded, but “accuracy of fact” and
“quick delivery” is the essence of their work. Known professionally
wherever big papers are printed, the cable man is almost unknown to
the general public. His paper requires of him first to be on the spot
where news is being made, and second to get a clear, concise and
correct report of that news to an uncensored cable, and do it before
anyone else can. Waking or sleeping, the events man has two ideas in
the back of his head, the hour his paper goes to press, and his line
of communication to his cable office. As a diver depends on his air
tube to the face of the water, so the correspondent depends on his
line of communication to the outer world. The moment his retreat is
severed he is useless and for the moment might as well be dead. He may
have a story of world importance, but if he is out of touch with the
cable his news is worthless. His paper, on the other hand, is prepared
to back him to the limit to maintain such a line. Steamers, railroad
trains, courier systems, and any means or methods his imagination or
ingenuity may devise, are his for the asking, if he can only get out
exclusive news, and get it first. His paper will pay fabulous sums,
$2,000, $5,000, even $10,000 for an account of a world event. A single
story of this kind is printed in ten thousand papers in fifty different
languages within twenty-four hours after the correspondent files it
in a cable office. His version of the affair is read first by every
foreign office in the civilized world. On his story the editorials on
the “situation” are based, from London to Buenos Ayres. The “feature
man” chronicles the events as he sees them. The “cable man,” though
in a small way, is a part of the great event. In the boiling vortex
where history is in the making, there is he, struggling against his
colleagues of the press of America and Europe to give to the world the
first facts of an international clash. He moves to the click of the
telegraph, and if he acts at all, he must act on the minute. Even
hours are too slow for the newspaper reading public. His editor at home
watches the ever-changing kaleidoscope of history, moving and reforming
on the stages of the world. Now Japan is in the public’s eye. He has
a man on the spot. Again it is a race war in Georgia—the invasion of
Thibet, a constitutional parliament in Persia, war in the Balkans, or a
revolution in Russia. All of these the restless, lynx-eyed one watches
from his office in Chicago. A hundred cables a day reach his desk from
all quarters of the globe, and in his mind from hour to hour he is
weighing the relative importance of all the interesting situations in
the world. If a parliamentary crisis develops in Europe, he has the
choice of a dozen of his foreign staff to cover it. A few words on the
pad, and in five hours the Berlin correspondent starts for Sweden, or
perhaps the Paris man telephones his wife that he is off for Algeciras
or Madrid. A pause in the career of a war correspondent for such a
paper means to him that for the moment the situation is too indefinite
to warrant any immediate action. From day to day he lives with a vague
wonder on his mind where the next day will see him. Will he be on his
way home, to Europe, Asia, or the Philippines, or perhaps to some
unfamiliar place he has to search in the Atlas to find? Surrounded by
his campaign baggage and war kit, he sits and waits, ready for a quick
call to any quarter of the globe to which the cable may order him.
Peking is too far from the haunts of civilization for one to follow
the news of the world day by day. The telegrams are days old, and the
papers weeks and months. For over a month the correspondent waited in
Peking and played. China is ever the source of interest which ebbs and
flows. Now it is on the point of another Boxer outbreak, and next it
is in the throes of constitutional reforms. An occasional anti-foreign
riot, a Chinese execution, or perhaps even a bomb helps to while away
the lazy days, and gives material for intermittent cables on the trend
of far eastern politics.
We were waiting on the veranda of the hotel across from the American
Legation. At this moment we seem as far from Chicago as from Mars.
The sounds and sights of Peking have weaned us from the confusion of
a world beyond. Rickshaw coolies squatting outside, the low murmur of
their voices, the jingle of a bell on a passing Peking cart, all tend
to widen the gulf that separates the East from the West. We are aroused
by a voice at our side. “Telegram have got.” It is for me. I take the
sheet of paper that in some form or other has found out my quiet in
every quarter of the globe. As you tear open the gray envelope you
wonder almost subconsciously where the next weeks will take you, and
your curiosity hurries your hand as you tear it open and read the curt
message dated Chicago, and marked “Rush.”
“Russia direct. When do you start?” Once more the love and fascination
of the game surge through your veins. You are too far out of the world
to know what is passing for the moment in Russia, but you feel sure
it must be something good and big, with promise of long duration, to
have brought this urgent cable of five words, ordering you half around
the world. You call for a telegraph blank, and as you wait, your mind
works almost unconsciously, something unexpressed and involuntary.
“Russia direct! The Trans-Siberian road is unquestionably the quickest,
providing you can get immediate action, but it is now blocked with
troops and munitions of war. Obviously a permit will be necessary. It
would take ten days at least to make connections through the State
Department and the Petersburg Minister of Railroads to get it. Ten
days is too long to wait, and then there are the uncertainties of
days besides. The _Pacific_ might do, but the _Empress_ sails from
Shanghai to-morrow. You can’t make her, and there is not another fast
boat for a fortnight. There is a French or German mail for the Canal
surely within a week,” and your mind is made up, and on the arm of
your chair you write the reply, “Leaving to-night. Shanghai Monday,
thence first steamer Canal,” and sign your name, mark the message “R.
T. P.,” which means “Receiver to pay,” and walk to your room. Your
Japanese understudy who has been on your staff these many months jumps
up. Another man who has been waiting in the corner of the room gets
out of his chair. He is an American negro, Monroe D. Morris, who for
three weeks has been an anxious candidate for a staff position. Since
it is Russia, the Jap is obviously impossible. You tell him so, and he
shuffles his feet as he hears the ultimatum, for he had hoped for a
trip to Europe. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison, for while
the mournful Ikezwap backed up for the last time, the beaming Ethiopian
grinned from ear to ear as he rushed to his quarters to throw together
his own small belongings.
A few hours sufficed to pack all my effects which, when mobilized,
comprised fourteen pieces of impedimenta. The theory is that a war
correspondent must move from place to place prepared at any moment to
adjust himself to any situation, from a war assignment, revolution or
riot, down to the meeting socially of a foreign ambassador. Hence these
fourteen pieces, which sound excessive, contained everything from a
frock coat and a high hat down to a kitchen camp stove. Saddles, tents,
campaign outfits of various kinds take up much room, but are really
worth the bother, for when one wants them, that want is a demand that
money often cannot meet. One’s own saddle on a hurry call that may mean
days of riding is in itself an asset beyond comparison. It may mean all
the difference between success and failure. One knows just what one can
do with an outfit tried and true, and hence it is worth while lugging
it about the world, even if it is used but once or twice.
A few days later saw me and my grinning Ethiopian disembarked on the
Bund at Shanghai. The place looked familiar enough, for I had spent
weeks there, and this was my fifth visit. Every time I left I felt that
I had made a distinct addition to my information as to the wickedness
of the world, and every time the desire rested heavily on my mind to
write a story about this cosmopolitan mushroom on the China coast, but
each time I held my hand as I realized that fate might well bring me
back to it, but now that Shanghai is some ten thousand miles away, and
the chances of seeing the people who might read such a story remote, I
feel that I cannot pass it over without a few comments.
Geographically, the Chinese city is almost at the end of the earth.
Morally, one could say, without any hesitation, it is at the end.
The only place that can compete with it for demoralization and
unrestriction is Port Said. The two are neck and neck for laurels of
this description. Shanghai is the final bit of dead water to which
the flotsam and jetsam of the stream of life seems to drift and then
stop in utter stagnation. People who have failed to make good in all
other quarters of the world, seem to turn naturally towards the China
coast, and Shanghai lures them as the candle does the moth. There
remittance men are as thick as sparrows in springtime. These creatures
are the black sheep and younger sons, or other undesirable members
of well-to-do families, who are allowed so many pounds a quarter by
their loving friends, on the sole condition that the cash must be paid
anywhere “east of the Canal.” They drift along through India, over to
Burma, down the States of the Malay Peninsula, and with short stops at
Singapore and Hongkong, they start straight for their final collapse
in Shanghai, where they meet shoals of their fellows, consuming bad
whiskey and soda at the bars of the various hotels. These gentlemen
form a strong and populous element in the community. Next we find a
large colony of alleged business men who have failed to accumulate the
fortunes to which their alleged abilities are supposed to have entitled
them, and who have come out to China to sell someone a gold brick.
These two classes form the matrix of the foreign unattached residents.
Then we have the men who are actually attached to some business house
with their home office in the States, or back in Europe. These are for
the most part doing short sentences, and are fairly respectable. Lastly
we have the Shanghai business man, who is one of the most strenuous
gentlemen of his kind to be seen the world over. He speculates in
shares, of which there is an enormous variety in Shanghai. The
operations in the Chicago wheat pit and the New York stock exchange in
days of a panic are mild in comparison to the fluctuations observed on
any ordinary day’s business in Shanghai stocks. The result is, people
are losing and winning fortunes every few hours.
At 11 o’clock everyone who has the entrée begins to drift toward the
Shanghai Club. By noon the bar is packed. At 2 o’clock the rush is
over, and only those that have fallen by the way remain, cast away on
sofas. In race week or holidays, sofas are as few and far between as
snowballs in Hades. At five o’clock the rush begins again, and lasts
until the early hours of the morning.
Everybody in Shanghai drinks, mostly to excess. It is the only place I
know of where young men with incomes of from $50 to $100 a month are
able to spend twice that sum in a week on their establishment, yet this
is unquestionably the case. I knew of one young man making perhaps
$20 a week, who in a year failed for $10,000. At no time, as far as I
could ever learn, did he ever have any assets worth mentioning. This
remarkable means of living is fostered by the so-called “chit” system.
The “chits” are small bits of paper on which one writes an I O U for
any commodity or service conceivable. Any man who has a position can
sign a chit at almost any bar, store or dive in Shanghai. The young
men of the clerk class proceed to do this with great effect, and ready
cash is used for speculative purposes, while their immediate wants are
met by the simple process of signing a “chit.” If they are successful
in their speculation, they pay the “chits,” and all goes well. If
they fail, and are unable to beg, borrow or steal means to meet their
obligations, they either commit suicide or go to Chefoo or Tientsin
until the trouble blows over, which it soon does, as there are so many
other men in the same boat. After a few months of this precarious life
about the China coast, back they come, and if they are unable to get
employment, they fall back into a semi-loafing class and ultimately
a vagrant class, which helps to swell the already large population
of this sort. The wealthy men of the place are mostly young fellows
of the kind described, who have prospered in their investments. They
go in more heavily for all sorts of deals and speculations. Chinese
concessions, promotion schemes and similar enterprises are created, to
be sold at home with great advantage. Every week fortunes are made and
lost, and everybody, nearly, is happy and irresponsible.
The methods of doing business are quaint, and to the westerner somewhat
astonishing. Every man who is connected, in even the most remote way,
with a business deal, comes in for a squeeze of some sort. I knew of
a case where one man had a boat to sell, and another man, who had
learned the description of the boat (for the names of the gentlemen
are withheld by the middle man lest the latter be cut out entirely)
was eager to snap it up for use in running the blockade. Both the
buyer and the seller were eager to meet each other, but the only man
who knew them both declined to disclose their names until he was paid
a commission sum of $5,000. If you meet a man, and he introduces you
to another man, who makes you acquainted with a third party who sells
you a commodity, numbers one and two block all negotiations until the
seller consents to share the spoils with them. The result is that after
a business deal has gone through so many hands, there is not much
left for anyone in particular. The tendency is for the man who has
the commodity and the man who has the price to combine, and exclude
the line of grafters who would stand between, hence the gentlemen who
profit on the legitimate business men veil all their negotiations until
almost the last moment in a business deal. The names of the actual
parties are withheld from each other by the “go betweens” for fear that
the gentlemen will combine and exclude them from profit.
A volume might easily be written in description of the various habits
of the men, women and children who lead the fierce pace of foreign life
in Shanghai, but the requirements of space demand that I pass over such
a tempting analysis of degeneracy and vice with these few comments.