PLUCKY SCOTCHMAN IN CHINA

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11544, 1 December 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

PLUCKY SCOTCHMAN IN CHINA

A remarkable story has been told by Mr. C. Mcintosh, a Scotsman, who has returned to America from China. Some years ago he went out to start a new woollen mill at Tientsin, and when the trouble broke out some British and Americans decided to defend the building. Mr. Mcintosh agreed to defend the tower, 140 ft high, which commands the whole countryside. For 16 days and nights he remained on the top of this lofty point, using his Lee-Metford every time a Boxer showed his head. In the cold of the night, as in the terrible heat of the day, when the sun beat down on him with merciless force, he remained at his post, often without food for considerable periods, and picked off no fewer than 96 of the enemy. " I never expected to get away," he says. " I calculated how long it would be before I should hear the yellow devils rushing through the mill below. They would fire the factory and let me burn to death. I determined that the last shot in my gun should be kept for myself. Finally they turned their large guns on the mill and the shells set it afire. Somehow, I can hardly tell bow, we escaped to the city." Mr. Mcintosh afterwards became driver of the train that carried 1700 American and German troops and ammunition of the Pekin relief expedition. He had many hairbreadth escapes. At one time he ran the train at express speed through several hundred Chinese that were tearing desperately at the rails. When one of them was afterwards asked why he did not run he said that the gods had promised that no harm should come to them. They expected to see the engine stop before,it reached them. This courageous Scotchman hopes soon to return to his work in China.