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Show MANILA FORCES TO AIOPRISONERS AMERICAN LEGATION REFUSES TO CONFIRM PEKIN RUMOR OF SENDING SOLDIERS Hoped Presence of Soldiers Will Induce Bandits to Free Hostages Host-ages Held for Ransom In Mountains Pekin. American troops in Manila are soon to be rushed to Tientsin, it was reliably stated here Friday. The American legation refuses either to confirm or deny the report. The forces were demanded in a resolution res-olution forwarded to the state department depart-ment by the American chamber of commerce. It is presumed they would be used either actively or passively in attempting to induce the Chinese bandits ban-dits to release their American prison ers, seized nearly three weeks ago, after the wreck of the Shanghai-Pekin express. There are now approximately 1800 troops at Tientsin, including 800 marines. ma-rines. In Pekin the British, French and Japanese legation guards number about the same. It is doubtful, however, how-ever, how many of the forces could be used, since they now are assisting in guarding the Pekih-Mukden railway, rail-way, under the protocol of 1900. |