A FEW CRUMBS 18th June, 1900. * * * * * It has just transpired that Hsu Tung, an infamous Manchu high official, who has been the Emperor's tutor, and whose house is actually on Legation Street some fifty yards inside the lines of the Italian Legation, has been allowed to pass out of our barricaded quarter, going quite openly in his blue and red official chair. This is a terrible mistake which we may pay for dearly. Hsu Tung is a scoundrel who is at least thorough in his convictions as far as we are concerned. It is he who has long been boasting--and all Peking has been repeating his boast--that in the near future he is going to line his sedan chair with the hides of foreign devils and fill his harem with their women; and it is he, above all other men, who should have been seized by us, held as hostage, and shot out of hand the very moment the Chinese Government gives its open official sanction to this insane Boxer policy. Had we acted in this way and taken charge of a number of other high officials who live just around us, we might have shown the trembling government that a day of retribution is certain to come. And yet listen what happened. Either on the 15th or 16th Hsu Tung sent the majordomo of his household cringing to the French Legation for a _passepartout_. He had already tried once to escape by way of the Italian barricades, but had been sternly ordered back, and his house placed under watch. Somehow, through the foolishness of an interpreter of the French Legation, he got his safe-conduct pass, and started out bold as brass in the morning, seated in his official chair and accompanied by his official outriders. He passed a first French barricade and reached an outer second barrier manned by volunteers, who challenged him roughly and then refused to let him pass. The outriders then tried to ride our men down, and it needed a rifle-shot to bring them to their senses. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and presently the youthful volunteers had Hsu Tung himself out of the chair, and kept him seated on the ground while they debated whether they should respect the French pass or strap the great man up and send him to their own quarters as a prisoner of war. In the end, however, one of the secretaries came up and inquired what it all meant, and then, of course, weak counsels prevailed, and Hsu Tung was allowed to sneak off unmolested down a side lane. This incident is typical as showing the stamp of men who have commanding voices in our beleagued quarter. God help us if any considerable force is sent against us, for we can never help ourselves. Every proper-minded young man is a natural soldier methinks, even in Anno Domini 1900, but every elderly person in the same year of grace is quite valueless--that is what we have already discovered.