But the Chinese were not the only people ready to loot. Some of the deserted Japanese shops contained goods of considerable value. Of these the police took charge, and they employed soldiers to pack and convey them to a place of safety. More than one attempt was made by well-to-do foreigners to secure an object of art at first cost, and I have a recollection of a smart young American careering fearfully along a street with soldiers in close pursuit. Some valuable effects were also left behind by rich Chinese merchants who abandoned their homes. The foreigners mostly shipped their valuables to one of the China treaty ports, or deposited them at the Russo-Chinese bank, where they doubtless remain. It is common knowledge that throughout the East the Chinaman is treated by Europeans everywhere as an inferior. Possibly the Russians do not offend more grossly than others, but to those who are not Russians their cruelties seem more barbarous. Port Arthur was not an exception to the rule. The lower classes, the coolies, were regarded as slaves. Once, a Russian, who habitually treated the jinricksha men with unusual harshness and occasional ferocity, was taken by men he had abused to a deserted part of the town, and there fearfully and cruelly mutilated. The perpetrators of this outrage were never discovered. The authorities were so enraged at being baulked in their attempt to find the criminals that they sentenced _all_ the ’ricksha men in the port to a long term of imprisonment, but in order to avoid inconvenience to the public, the men were divided into two lots, each of which went to prison alternate weeks. A few days after the bombardment most of the respectable Chinese had left the port; there remained many improvident coolies and some Chinese of the worst type. There is no doubt that they broke the laws and offended in many ways, but I doubt if they committed any crime which justified the severity with which they were treated. Persons merely suspected of wrongdoing were most brutally handled by the military police. I have seen men cruelly kicked because they could not lift heavy loads no man could carry; I have seen them beaten and mauled for no other offence, that I could discover, than that they were Chinamen. I have seen ears torn, and queues lugged until the scalp has been ripped--preliminary punishment by the street police when conveying unresisting coolies to prison, there to answer a charge. And these assaults were common, in even the leading and most thronged thoroughfares of the town, and were so usual as rarely to collect a crowd or call for remark from an officer or any other disinterested person.