A Secret Agent in Port Arthur by Wirt Gerrare

At Newchwang there were all the elements that tend to characterize the Russian military rule. It has been stated repeatedly that the Russians at Newchwang were guilty of barbarities, that they abominably ill-treated Japanese refugees, insulted the foreign lady residents, made themselves feared by their outrageous conduct, and required the constraint a European joint occupation of the port would impose. The facts do not support the irresponsible reports of those journalists to whom the conditions of Russian life were new. Foreign ladies were not habitually insulted by the Russians, nor were the residents, European or Chinese, ill-treated or outraged. The only cases I saw of wrongdoing were petty pilferings by Russian soldiers from Chinese pedlars, and common and unmitigated cruelty to animals.

The Russian officers and the Russian troops from the British standpoint of to-day were licentious, dissipated and immoral, as well as rough to occasional brutality. They drank freely, lived as well as their means permitted, and enjoyed themselves as far as circumstances allowed. When they left they took with them their women, their drink, their dirt, their noise -- and the goodwill of the bulk of the foreign residents.