On March 12th, Provincial President Wu Hon Man and Governor Chan Kwang Ming, at Canton, were harassed by the notorious pirate chief, Luk, who was remarkably successful. Luk, through the mutiny of the soldiers, gained the historic Bogue, Yuchu, Whampoa and Fumen forts, and the arsenal and admiralty buildings. All the foreign navies, led by the United States gunboat _Wilmington_ and the British fleet under Commander Eyres, anchored off Shameen Island, cleared for action, and the passenger steamers, on which probably every world tourist has probably been, the _Fatshan_ and _Honan_, sailed from Canton for Hongkong with two thousand passengers each. The famous old shallow draft British gunboat _Moorhen_, the hero of a thousand pirate chases in intricate Kwangtung province waters, had her awnings and spars torn by bullets during the night, as she protected the electric station, so that the pirates could not strike Canton into midnight, and in the dark massacre along the narrow streets, the maloos and the bund. Eight hundred British and French troops patrolled the little foreign island of Shameen. Before the days of direct primary nominations in America we suffered from the machine system, which advanced the incompetent and debarred the eminent and efficient from service in the state. A saloon-keeper who brought 2,000 votes would demand, for instance, the position of secretary of state. “But you’re not fitted for it; you’re a hoodlum.” The ward-heeler would answer: “I must have it; I have to pay my 2,000 brigands the ‘graft’ which we claim is ours; otherwise, remember our revenge next election.” One Shek Kam Chuen, a young stone-cutter and human hair hawker of Canton, was very successful in smuggling arms for the revolution, and on the declaration of independence, he led a following of 2,000 nondescript men, who did effective work in fighting. They were men who loved a fight more than liberty, not liberty more than life. When the republic was victorious and his troops, after being paid, were disbanded, Shek was unsatisfied. He, a hawker, wanted high office, when even President Sun turned his brother down from politics to business in Canton because he was not eminent for political ability. Shek made demands for his men that the state could not consistently grant. He smuggled arms to take up piracy in reprisal on the harassed state. The way the governor of Canton treated Shek and his legal adviser, Chang Han Hing, was, under the constitutional pressure of public opinion, to capture them at their headquarters, and under military law, or the application of the popular “recall”, have them both shot, to the great rejoicing of good citizens and taxpayers. That ended one instance of heelerism, bossism, packed primary, professional office holding, “public office a private graft”, piracy, or whatever you like to call it, in modern China! The “Popular Recall” was a success, despite the cynicism of the standpatters in Canton, and one of