Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/102

90  are inimitably ingenious; their revenge on traitors, swift and unswerving. Their cruelties to enemies are indescribable. When their passions are roused their victim will be hacked to pieces, each person cutting off just as much as he desires of the common enemy's flesh. The more daring and cunning he has been the more is his liver and gall wished for, since it is believed that by eating these one's own valour and cunning will be increased.

Before the Revolution of 1911 and the organization of the Railway League, the Society men always had to be reckoned with; but since that date their influence has been supreme, and no one dare give offence to them, however much grieved or injured. If a Society rascal is arrested neighbors dare not refuse to bail him out, and whole families may be ruined for the divulging of a secret. The best policy for all is to humour the members and avoid any action that would rouse their wrath.

The Railway League (同志會), t‘ung chih hui; etc. The Han Liu, true to its ancient traditions, is still the enemy of all reform, and is ever ready for any pretext of making trouble. The proposal to introduce railways into the province caused the formation of the so-called Railway League, in Chinese, "The Society of united purpose for protection of the way." It was really an amalgamation of the Confucian Society with the Han Liu for the purpose of opposing a railway system financed by foreign capital. The new name should not mislead the student; it was simply a revival of the revolutionary brotherhood reinforced by the addition of the weaker Confucian Society. The League leaders were the Han Liu leading elder brothers, and the organization was the anchorage system of the Han Liu.

A rebellion broke out first in Kwan hsien and the other districts already specified as full of brigand stock. The lawless wretches carried devastation and anarchy wherever they marched. They got more than they expected or wanted, but at the downfall of the Manchus they immediately set up the Han Republic (大漢), Ta Han. With the new government