a
Bill (Ordinance they call it) putting down all Chinese secret societies
in the colony, which measure only awaited the Imperial assent. A little
business in Singapur connected with some municipal measure for clearing
away overhanging verandahs created a storm, and for three days those who
were in the place say the town was entirely at the mercy of the Chinese,
who rose all together and made life unpleasant for the authorities. This
incident forced the Government to take serious notice of the secret
societies who could so control the actions of men, and the result has
been a measure which it will not be easy to enforce. A Chinaman _must_
have a secret society of some kind. He has been bred up in a country
where they were necessary to his comfort, his protection, and the
maintenance of his scale of wages from time immemorial, and he will
carry them with him as he will carry his opium and his coffin.

"Do you expect then that the societies will collapse by proclamation?" I
asked the editor.

"No. There will be a row."

"What row? what sort of a row?"

"More troops, perhaps, and perhaps some gunboats. You see, we shall have
Sir Charles Warren then as our Commander-in-Chief at Singapur. Up till
the present our military administration has been subordinate to that of
Hong-Kong; when that is done away with and we have Sir Charles Warren,
things will be different. But there will be a row. Neither you nor I nor
any one else will be able to put these things down. Every joss house
will be the head of a secret society. What can one do? In the past the
Government made some use of them for the detection of crime. Now they
are too big and too important to be treated in that way. You will know
before long whether we have been able to suppress them. There will be a
row."

Certainly the great grievance of Penang is the Chinese question. She
would not be human did she not revile her Municipal Commissioners and
talk about the unsanitary condition of the island. If nose and eyes and
ears be any guide, she is far cleaner even in her streets than many an
Indian cantonment, and her water-supply seems perfection. But I sat in
that little newspaper office and listened to stories of municipal
intrigue that might have suited Serampore or Calcutta, only the names
were a little different, and in place of Ghose and Chuckerbutty one
heard titles such as Yih Tat, Lo Eng, and the like. The Englishman's
aggressive altruism always leads him to buil