It has been humorously
remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
for drilling him so hard and long.
What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
be true also of Tali-fu.
A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks--a sign in
itself of the altered conditions of the times--and I visited some
extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
thousand gold dollars.
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