FORMOSANS AND LIVE WIRE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 17, 23 August 1913, Page 12

FORMOSANS AND LIVE WIRE

BAMBOO INSULATORS. Of the 120,000 aborigines in Formosa, about 30,000 still resist tho Japanese. The nnconquered tribesmen includ^ the Taiyal head-hunters. According to a Japanese writer, " the northern savage district, which is at present a scene of fierce guerrilla wars, is surrounded by the ' guard line ' extending nearly 300 miles. Over this line 1700 stations and guard-houses are sprinkled, with a total guard force of 7500, including both Japanese and Formosan Chinese. In some sections of the line wire entanglements are set up charged with electricity, which is supplied from four small power stations erected at the foot of mountain streams Mountain and machine guns are also placed on commanding hills. "For a time the electrically charged wires were objects of great marvel to the savages, and something quite beyond the ken of their imagination. But soon experiences, accompanied by more or less sacrifice, taught them practical lesions, and they not infrequently trespassed over the line, shifting the wires by means of a dried bamboo pole, which they fcrund would insulate the current, or by digging a hole in the ground just below 1 the deadly wires. "With the completion of good thoroughfares in the districts inhabited by the savages, the march of civilisation and industrial enterprise will follow."