| Show CHINESE BANDITS JOKE UP TO LAST MOMENT after undergo ng tortures of the pris on the doomed men go almost willingly to execute on call for a song on the scaffold A correspondent of the shanghai times thus describes the execution of three chinese bandits july 27 last at Dah oshun midday between kao and native soldiers being in charge going up the hill to the execution ground one oi the men was so heavily shackled with a great beam of wood round his ankles that he was unable to wall and the soldiers were forced to carry him up this he treated as a great joke and chaffed the soldiers for not carrying him more gently arrived at the top two of the condemned men started a heated discussion as to which one should be beheaded las these two men wong the second chief of the band and a man named allu were the disputants and each claimed the right to see the other one s held taken off allu claimed that wong being the chief ought to be executed first but wong claimed that it was his right as superior officer to see the tun at his subordinates expense finally it was arranged with the assistance of the chinese officers that the third man should be executed first wong second and allu third this being satisfactorily arranged wong asked to be allowed to have a last look around the country and mad a few facetious remarks and then started to sing a chinese song see ing some foreigners present he then turned round and remarked to one of them HI you foreign man give us I 1 a foreign song the foreigner ex pressed his inability so allu struck up a native ditty and the trio prepared tor execution on stripping off their garments the means by which the con sessions fes on the strength of which the men were to die had been obtained were evident as their bad s were hor bibly lacerated and death was possibly tar preferable to the tortures which they had undergone the leader wong in his confession stated that he had acted as a scout for the japanese but as they had not paid him tor his work he had taken up the bandit business of his own account there was much more the raiding of villages the holding up of merchants and the driving off of cattle and horses that he had been in the employ of the japanese is quite tain for the writer has seen him in with a band of his fellows accompanied by japanese officers and carrying a japanese banner he was then wearing a green badge on his arm with a white centerpiece with a red dot on it and some japanese char aebers the badge of a scout in the service |
