A Cargo of Chinamen.

Hastings Standard, Issue 162, 3 November 1896, Page 4

A Cargo of Chinamen.

Macmillvu's Magazine describes the burning of tin l I'-.in Jita'i, a vessel carrying <>"»0 Chinese laborers from • Macao to Feru. 1 'tin- Pon Juan left Macio, at the , month of the Canton Rive \ with (»•'»() i Chim-f coolies bound midt contract | f.ir time years to Peru, where cheap S labor is not too plentiful. A few days i i'i: a fire was discovered, caused : maliciously, so the crew said, by one ! of tin 1 emigrants. It broke out in the icalin. so the surviving emigrants asserted, though they did not seem to be in a position to know this. • An able seaman named Harker, who was on watch among the coolies, said that a <juarrel broke out, because "when breakfast was sent down, it was found to Ik* three dishes short —that is to say, :i0 men had no breakfast, and nobody wauled to wait until the omission was • ivstu-died. There was a scuffle: one of the coolies made a nasty remark t-o th? interpreter, who had charge of the lot, and he bit the fellow with his

civir. A <l:-/.ou of the man's crcwe.; 1 1 11 to wood, n:vl to sh:ul " Ta- j t;),*" which tioesri't intau " < s-l.iye, j but- "ft iri !:•■•. strike !" The interpreter ] >ii ii out his revolver. :i;nl retired ! - ds to the f'lro-h.i i'' 11 - The eo-.jiios dropped their rice and made a I-iS.!. The interpreter vent up the lidder like a .streak of lightning ; and Harker, whose station was nt the foot, and who wonted danger in the rear of the coolies followed him equally fast, They got on deck just in time to drop the iron grating of the hatch on the heads of the three foremost pursuers; it probably hurt them, hut their wasn't time to inquire into the matter. The narrator stood on deck near the particular hatch, and helped to keep the swarming, howling, yellow men from pushing it up, while some others put the padlock on. The coolies thou got from under the hatchway and seized stanchions from their bunks, with which they tried to heat up the board of the deck. In the floor of the captain's cabin there were three small iron gratings, through which the first and second mate, and storeman (a Maltese), and mvself watched to see what was going on" below. On each side of the rudder were two small rooms; one full of old sails, old rope, and unmixed paint-, the other containing bamboo hats. I conld't make it out clearly myself, but the Maltese told me that he saw a man go into the first of these rooms and immediately after we all saw smoke coming out of the room, and then fire. This happened about half-pnst ten, an hour and a half after the beginning of the row. Matters now became serious, the fire altogether changing the complexion of the business. Hands were set to the pumps, and a hose thrust through the ventilators ; but the coolies, though drenched to the skin, pushed it back a train. It was then taken to the afterhatch and put down there, while we tired pistols to frighten the men away. Hut most of them were mad by this time, and wo clearly saw one fellow, who had got hold of "the hose to carry it along to the seas of the lire, clubbed on the head, and killed with half a dozen stanchions. The brutes who murdered him broke the glass of the portholes and stuck the nozzle through, so that the water went into the sea. whore it wasn't wanted. They had occasion to Vie sorry before long; that fire spread, sir, in the most astonishing way. These roaring madmen were now trying all they knew to get on deck ; they even tried' to come up the revolving iron ventilators : but they would have killed everybody on deck had they once got there, and we had to look after ourselves. Before midday the main and mixzen masts went by the hoard, and we though it time to get out the boats. There were ; four of them, but only two were used ; I the lifeboat sank because the plug was i lost, and there wasn't time to get the remaining one off the da\its. Before the second boat c.ist off, we threw all the spare spars, hen-coops, and other i truck overboard for the benefit of : whom it may concern. There were a few Chinese, about 2H, who had chanced to be on deck when the scrimmage began. They were sitting blubb; ring on the forecastle-head, but they'dived for the floating wood, and seven of them were picked up. There chanced to be a couple of junks near Us, for we had made only !;">() miles from Macao ; and in the end wo got on hoard one of them. A\ e heard that the few who were saved got on board the other junk, and refused firmly to he thrown into the sea again. \\ hen we saw the Don Juan last she was burning right forward. The coolies'? I think they were all dead by that time.