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Show Tehchow, Shantung, China Dear Friends: By the time this letter reaches you the papers will have told you something of the unpleasant happening that took place on the eleventh of July. Fearing lest you may have seen some of the very garbled accounts which were at first given out by the Chinese press, i wish to try to give you as eleareut a picture of the incident and its sequellae aspossible. For a number of months the Williams-Porter Hospitals has been suffering a series of robberies from various parts of the buildings, which in actual cash has amounted to nearly $2500, in addition to more petty but no less annoying theft of material and supplies. Increased vigilance, added locks and padlocks, the meticulous weighing of kerosene, and a score of other measures were all of no avail. As later developments show, locks were no obstacle to this thief! Every night for more than eight months the writer has prowled the hospital in the early morning hours, unseen, and unheard, in a vain attempt to trace the burglar. It got to the point where Dr. Tucker and myself could put up with it no longer. We felt drastic measures must be taken. Only a very few of the Chinese staff knew of our losses, for we knew not whom to trust, or suspect, and felt our only hope of getting the thief red-handed was to play a lone hand. We felt fairly certain there must at least be an accomplice amongst our own force, as the thefts were planned most auspiciously at times when funds must of necessity be in hand.. In the preceding three weeks money had been taken from no less than five different closets, drawers, and rooms, including the safe in the business office.-though all were locked. Right here I wish to make it clear to you friends at home why we did not call in the aid of the police as one would in America. Most of you will recall that our compound has been visited by bandit-robbers, twice in the last three years.-first at the home of our chief surgeon, Dr. Tsuei, and next Mrs. Tucker and her two children then at home were held up and beaten, in the hope of extorting Famine Relief funds, which they believed to be in her possession. Unfortunately for the bandits, I had those monies with me at the hospital, so they got little, but such events do not leave pleasant memories in the minds of those who experience them. But to the point,-these two robberies were reported at once to the police officials and NOTHING worthy of record was done except to make the affairs so public that any thief with commonsense would make his getaway! In the present instance at the Hospital we felt that to call in police aid would thwart any possible hope of catching the thief. In such a small group, as we are, and with so many "eyes" all about us, we felt we must do the thing ourselves. I was very unwilling to leave Tehchow for my summer vacation and have Dr. Tucker face a continuance of these annoyances alone. The business office and safe seemed a favorite resort of the offender, so for five nights Dr. Tucker concealed himself in the tiny inner room, of the big office, catching what sleep he could on mattresses I had smuggled in, and if you think it an easy task try sleeping in your closet with the thermometer above 90! As Dr. is a man over sixty, even if unusually active and spry, I was wholly unwilling he should face this danger unarmed. Without doubt it would be a younger man, or a group of them, that he would face, and in the night, there is noone on the basement first floor of the hospitals, where this office is situated. In an unequal struggle, he could very easily be overcome, and noone be the wiser. Hence he kept my revolver with him, TO SOUND AN ALARM FOR HELP, AND TO INTIMIDATE THE THIEF. All the servants and staff and nurses know I keep this little revolver with me at night, especially in these last years, when our region has been so bandit-ridden, and I have often been the only foreigner on the compound, with women nurses to protect. Perhaps this is one reason why the thief did not visit me and demand monies, which he must have known I often had out at Wee Hoose, my quarters off the pavilion corridor, with me, when I was left with such responsibilities. I was up twice during that night, the first time a little after midnight, and the last time going back to bed at half past three; feeling by that time all must be safe for the night. Would that I had waited another hour. I did not go to sleep again, but lay thinking of the problem, for some time, when suddenly a revolver shot sent me flying out of bed. I seized my robe and flash that always are by my bed for night emergency calls, and flew down the corridor to the office, where the door was wide open, as also the partition door between the two hospitals, and the men's chapel door, all of which I had left locked at bedtime, and which were still locked at half past three. A glance into the office showed that empty and I ran outside but stood near the windows of the office as I thought possibly some accomplice might show himself. As I ran thru the corridor on the way to the office, I heard a second and a third shot but by the time I had gotten outdoors, not a soul was to be seen. In a very short time Dr. fucker came running back from the front of the compound, I called, "Who was it?" and he answered, I do not know. Get a stretcher, quick." I blew my whistle, calling coolies, and sent a stretcher after the wounded man, at the same time calling our chief surgeon, and the opera-tingroom nurses from their beds. When I heard the first shot it was exactly half past four by the alarm clock beside my bed on the porch. In less time than it takes to write, the man was on our accident bed in the receiving room, but the exertion of running almost a third of a mile, plus a leap off the wall at the finish, had aggravated internal hemorrhage, and it was evident to us all that it was useless to try to operate. We gave hypodermic stimulation and an opiate for relief, and that was all that could be done. We asked him who had been his instigator or accomplices, but he shook his head and refused to reply. Within an hour after being carried into the hospital he had gone. He was head janitor in the women's hospital |