Post by NZBC on Jan 16, 2010 21:13:35 GMT 12
A WHITE SLAVE
SYDNEY BOY TAKEN TO CHINA
EXPERIENCES OF Richard ELLIS
Kidnapped, practically speaking, to China, at an age whan he barely knew right from wrong ; made a slave on an island farm away, up the Sikiang River, and treated by Asiatics in a shockingly cruel fashion — these and a number of other things have been the experience of a Sydney boy named Richard Ellis or Lee, aged 18 years. A bright-looking, brown-faced, brown-haired, blue-eyed lad is " Richard Ellis — as he shall be called throughout this story — and his reminiscences to a Sydney Sun man a few days ago showed that he has in him material for at least one very fine novel. In the last eleven years he gave evidence of having seen more "life" than 20 ordinary persons put together. ''When I was seven years old," said Ellis, "we were living at Parramatta. My mother married a Chinaman. She asked a me hundreds and hundreds of times, if I would like to go to China. Being only a silly little chap then, with not a quarter the brains I have now, I used to give all sorts of answers, and sometimes I would say 'Yes, I would like to go.' Anyway, whether I liked to go or not, a Chinaman came along one day and took me down to a big steamer, which is now trading to the East, and on board, with his wife and family, and his mother and father. We went in a big low compartment, where there were 70 bunks, all occupied by different kinds of Chinese passengers who were going to their native land. That, of I course, was in the third class. I was really a prisoner from the start. They i were always watching me, and only once i dining the voyage from Sydney to Hong kong, where the steamer finally arrived, there I was allowed out of that big compartment. I was there for three solid weeks. Well, we I mean the Chinaman who took me on board and Iris family — got off at Hongkong, where we stayed for four hours. Then we got a river boat to Macao and I waited for a day. Then into another boat, and up the Si-kiang to Shakhai, and on from there m a little punt to the scene of my four years of slavery and misery Chuktoin. They called me 'Ta-kow.' I had learned a little of the Chinese language, and they helped thinge along by talking away all my English clothes and putting on me a Chinese coat and funny, wide, baggy pants. They shaved half my hair off, and then let it grow and plaited it in a pigtail. I must have looked a little trick. No boots on, you know, or nothing. — Crab-catching m the Rioefields. — ''They pretty quick started me to work. I had to go from the farm to the village of Chuk-to-in, some distance away, and gather heavy loads of pig manure for the farm from the village streets. And I had to gather wood, which was a hard job. I had to go miles and miles, because the country about had very few trees, and was pretty bare mostly. And. I also did ploughing, with buffaloes instead of horses. Of course I used to carry the two baskets of vegetables on a pole over my shoulder, like you see the Chinamen m Sydney here, where the ladies say : Nothing to-day, John.' Another part of the business was catching crabs for the ducks to eat. These had to be caught early m the morning m the water which ran through the ricefields of the farm. It seems funny to think of it, doesn't it? Oh, yes, it was very hard work — very hard indeed. Always up at half -past 4 or 5 o'clock m the morning, and I didn't finish work till 7 m the night. That was the same every day, one day after another, and no day off to Test on Sundays. Only at Chinese New Year, one day off. One day's i*est a year — that's right. I had four days off that way m four years. These Chinese gardeners m Sydney don't work as hard as I did, I shouldn't think, although I was only a little bit of a chap. Eat! Rice to eat I used to have, and vegetables, and perhaps a bit of salt fish, and that's all. —Hung by Pigtail and Flogged.— " Did I try to get away I did, often. I was always trying that. There was somebody or other always watching, me even when I might think I was alone and had a good chance. I never seemed to get very far. They were always too quick, and brought me back again. Every time I made a dash to escape, and they got me again, they used to tie me up by the pigtail to a hole m the wall of the farmhouse, and this Chinaman or his mother used to flog me, with my feet hanging about a foot off the ground. Then my screams would bring the others in, and they would ask for mercy for me. Sometimes this man, after he flogged me, used to rub black salt into the cuts. It caused ms agony. That wasn't the onlything. When I told lies, or they said I told them, the Chinaman held me and put his fingers m my mouth at each corner and pulled it back till it was torn and blood ran into my teeth and down my throat. Then he would say it was not him that did it, but the lies that made the blood come. — At Mrs Gee Chong's. — "One place I used to go to when I tried to;run away was to Mrs- Gee Chong's house over, the river, three miles away, at a town, called Hang Me. That's a name ! Mrs Gee Chong, she was a- white woman married to a Chinaman. She was a Sydney girl. She used to cry over me, and I would cry, ahd she would comfort j|le, and be good to me, and look after me just as if I were her own son. She used to give me money and plenty to eat. She promised me that she would pay my fare from Hang Me to Sydney, and there, she said, she would fir.d my.m other for me She had to go her salt, for some reason or other, back to Sydney. We agreed that I was to try to go with her. So on the night she went I sneaked out of the farmhouse when everything seemed quiet, and flew towards the river and got on the boat with Mrs Gee Chong just as it was going. But the Chinaman at the farm found out, and chased us down the river m another boat, and caught ours. He took me back to the farm, and I got another flogging. — Chinaman Murders White Boy. — Sometimes, when I used to go to Chuk-to-in to get manure, I used to speak to three white American girls and their young brother, also white, who had come from America, by some arrangement on the part of their mother, to Sydney, and thence had been sent to China. We used the Chinese language, because we had forgotten English. These girls lived in a Chinaman's house. One day their young brother, who was 11 years old, asked a Chinaman that he used to call his brotherin-law for a few cents to buy some lollies. The man refused. The boy asked him again, and, m a fury, the Chinaman whipped off his wooden slipper and cracked him over the head. The child fell down unconscious, and died early the next morning. They wrapped the little chap up m a white cloth and buried him sft down. — Escape at Last. —
"At last I got away. One day an Englishman came riding along on a bike on a road near the farm. I ran up to him, thinking there might be a chance to get away' at last. I started speaking to him. It was a funny kind of language. I had long ago forgotten all my English. He couldn't speak Chinese, so Aye just had to jabber. The Englishman took me into a building like a court m a Portuguese settlement and explained my case. The Portuguese Government gave one of their policemen 40 dol to get some English clothes for me. So I was dressed up like an English boy, and had my pigtail cut off. From there the Portuguese policeman who had first charge of me took me to Hongkong to the English Embassy, and told my history to an official, who gave me some more clothes and some money. Then I was put m an orphanage for three weeks. After that I was sent to the Hongkong English Diocesan Boys' School. It was a boarding-school, and I stayed there for four and a-half years." Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 423, 17 June 1913, Page 2
SYDNEY BOY TAKEN TO CHINA
EXPERIENCES OF Richard ELLIS
Kidnapped, practically speaking, to China, at an age whan he barely knew right from wrong ; made a slave on an island farm away, up the Sikiang River, and treated by Asiatics in a shockingly cruel fashion — these and a number of other things have been the experience of a Sydney boy named Richard Ellis or Lee, aged 18 years. A bright-looking, brown-faced, brown-haired, blue-eyed lad is " Richard Ellis — as he shall be called throughout this story — and his reminiscences to a Sydney Sun man a few days ago showed that he has in him material for at least one very fine novel. In the last eleven years he gave evidence of having seen more "life" than 20 ordinary persons put together. ''When I was seven years old," said Ellis, "we were living at Parramatta. My mother married a Chinaman. She asked a me hundreds and hundreds of times, if I would like to go to China. Being only a silly little chap then, with not a quarter the brains I have now, I used to give all sorts of answers, and sometimes I would say 'Yes, I would like to go.' Anyway, whether I liked to go or not, a Chinaman came along one day and took me down to a big steamer, which is now trading to the East, and on board, with his wife and family, and his mother and father. We went in a big low compartment, where there were 70 bunks, all occupied by different kinds of Chinese passengers who were going to their native land. That, of I course, was in the third class. I was really a prisoner from the start. They i were always watching me, and only once i dining the voyage from Sydney to Hong kong, where the steamer finally arrived, there I was allowed out of that big compartment. I was there for three solid weeks. Well, we I mean the Chinaman who took me on board and Iris family — got off at Hongkong, where we stayed for four hours. Then we got a river boat to Macao and I waited for a day. Then into another boat, and up the Si-kiang to Shakhai, and on from there m a little punt to the scene of my four years of slavery and misery Chuktoin. They called me 'Ta-kow.' I had learned a little of the Chinese language, and they helped thinge along by talking away all my English clothes and putting on me a Chinese coat and funny, wide, baggy pants. They shaved half my hair off, and then let it grow and plaited it in a pigtail. I must have looked a little trick. No boots on, you know, or nothing. — Crab-catching m the Rioefields. — ''They pretty quick started me to work. I had to go from the farm to the village of Chuk-to-in, some distance away, and gather heavy loads of pig manure for the farm from the village streets. And I had to gather wood, which was a hard job. I had to go miles and miles, because the country about had very few trees, and was pretty bare mostly. And. I also did ploughing, with buffaloes instead of horses. Of course I used to carry the two baskets of vegetables on a pole over my shoulder, like you see the Chinamen m Sydney here, where the ladies say : Nothing to-day, John.' Another part of the business was catching crabs for the ducks to eat. These had to be caught early m the morning m the water which ran through the ricefields of the farm. It seems funny to think of it, doesn't it? Oh, yes, it was very hard work — very hard indeed. Always up at half -past 4 or 5 o'clock m the morning, and I didn't finish work till 7 m the night. That was the same every day, one day after another, and no day off to Test on Sundays. Only at Chinese New Year, one day off. One day's i*est a year — that's right. I had four days off that way m four years. These Chinese gardeners m Sydney don't work as hard as I did, I shouldn't think, although I was only a little bit of a chap. Eat! Rice to eat I used to have, and vegetables, and perhaps a bit of salt fish, and that's all. —Hung by Pigtail and Flogged.— " Did I try to get away I did, often. I was always trying that. There was somebody or other always watching, me even when I might think I was alone and had a good chance. I never seemed to get very far. They were always too quick, and brought me back again. Every time I made a dash to escape, and they got me again, they used to tie me up by the pigtail to a hole m the wall of the farmhouse, and this Chinaman or his mother used to flog me, with my feet hanging about a foot off the ground. Then my screams would bring the others in, and they would ask for mercy for me. Sometimes this man, after he flogged me, used to rub black salt into the cuts. It caused ms agony. That wasn't the onlything. When I told lies, or they said I told them, the Chinaman held me and put his fingers m my mouth at each corner and pulled it back till it was torn and blood ran into my teeth and down my throat. Then he would say it was not him that did it, but the lies that made the blood come. — At Mrs Gee Chong's. — "One place I used to go to when I tried to;run away was to Mrs- Gee Chong's house over, the river, three miles away, at a town, called Hang Me. That's a name ! Mrs Gee Chong, she was a- white woman married to a Chinaman. She was a Sydney girl. She used to cry over me, and I would cry, ahd she would comfort j|le, and be good to me, and look after me just as if I were her own son. She used to give me money and plenty to eat. She promised me that she would pay my fare from Hang Me to Sydney, and there, she said, she would fir.d my.m other for me She had to go her salt, for some reason or other, back to Sydney. We agreed that I was to try to go with her. So on the night she went I sneaked out of the farmhouse when everything seemed quiet, and flew towards the river and got on the boat with Mrs Gee Chong just as it was going. But the Chinaman at the farm found out, and chased us down the river m another boat, and caught ours. He took me back to the farm, and I got another flogging. — Chinaman Murders White Boy. — Sometimes, when I used to go to Chuk-to-in to get manure, I used to speak to three white American girls and their young brother, also white, who had come from America, by some arrangement on the part of their mother, to Sydney, and thence had been sent to China. We used the Chinese language, because we had forgotten English. These girls lived in a Chinaman's house. One day their young brother, who was 11 years old, asked a Chinaman that he used to call his brotherin-law for a few cents to buy some lollies. The man refused. The boy asked him again, and, m a fury, the Chinaman whipped off his wooden slipper and cracked him over the head. The child fell down unconscious, and died early the next morning. They wrapped the little chap up m a white cloth and buried him sft down. — Escape at Last. —
"At last I got away. One day an Englishman came riding along on a bike on a road near the farm. I ran up to him, thinking there might be a chance to get away' at last. I started speaking to him. It was a funny kind of language. I had long ago forgotten all my English. He couldn't speak Chinese, so Aye just had to jabber. The Englishman took me into a building like a court m a Portuguese settlement and explained my case. The Portuguese Government gave one of their policemen 40 dol to get some English clothes for me. So I was dressed up like an English boy, and had my pigtail cut off. From there the Portuguese policeman who had first charge of me took me to Hongkong to the English Embassy, and told my history to an official, who gave me some more clothes and some money. Then I was put m an orphanage for three weeks. After that I was sent to the Hongkong English Diocesan Boys' School. It was a boarding-school, and I stayed there for four and a-half years." Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 423, 17 June 1913, Page 2