Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/198

140 to be 5000 or 6000 in number, had just returned from a crusade of rapine, pillage, and plunder.

Money was required to pay for such an expedition, and the funds of the proposed Ch'êngtu-Hankow railway lay conveniently at hand. I would not, of course, go so far as to say that the whole of the sum abstracted for the purpose found its way to the pockets of those who were supposed to have earned it. History sometimes repeats itself, and it is worth recalling that Mr Cooper found a similar expedition, whose commander remained in Ch'êngtu, occupied in drawing pay at the monthly rate of 14s. a man for a paper army of 40,000 men, consisting of 250 men only, who had accomplished the truly magnificent feat of occupying nearly six months in covering a distance of thirty miles. In China there is always a big element of uncertainty in all official transactions connected with finance, and the only point in the present arrangement which apparently admitted of no doubt, was the abstraction of large sums from the fund specifically collected for the purpose