July 4, 1895.J
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE RÉPORT."
People going past our doors would say "burn out the foreigners" and such like remarks, and still we thought nothing particular of it. Stories. about four of us going to carry a large stone full of gold that was in the river outside the East gate were started and for days you couldn't get near the place for the throng going a-foot and in chairs | to see it. The huge stone cone outside the West gate has spoken and told the people that all the dry weather was on account of the foreigners and next year we were going to take the whole province. Such stories as these evidently in damed the people, and when the city was crowded at the feast, the whole thing broke out. You cannot calculate the harm to the mission work atresent, to say nothing of the monetary loss. This will be a thing for the home offices to settle through Peking, which will take time. Meanwhile there will be nothing done in Chengta and perhaps in the whole province.-almost altogether a matter of looting :- N. G. Daily News,
city had been placarded, but there the officials were vigilant and patrolling the streets.
the riot news from elsewhere; but the Taotai is Of course Chungking is not a little stirred by | friendly and is apparently doing his best to keep order. It is impossible to tell what may be the end of it all. There are about a score of stations in the province occupied by l'rotestant mission. aries, who number about 140, including both sexes. The Catholics are almost everywhere.
We cannot tell when the ball set rolling by the Viceroy will stop. If the foreign govern- ments do not take stringent measures there may be a clean sweep of the whole province. People are saying that the Emperor has ordered the Viceroy to drive out all the foreigners, begin. ning at Chengtu.
8th of June, says the riot appears to have been A private letter from Chungking, dated the
view the sports there. During the fun a plum accidentally hit the woman, which being taken as premeditated was at once resented by her. and the woman fearing the consequences began A wordy war resulted. This attracted a crowd to leave the grounds with her youthful charges," pursued by a mob of young rowdies. She the people being already inflamed against was apparently recognised as a convert and the missionaries by the placards, the crowd began to be hostile; but before they could catch hold of the woman she and the children got inside the mission compound and the gates were at once shut upon the mob outside. Here upon a number of them began to call out that the foreigners had kidnapped some children and demanded that they should be given up to the bolder and succeeded at last iu breaking down people. The mob gathering in size became the heavy entrance gates of the compound. The Viceroy," continues the writer, "bad They then made a rush inside, eager to plander The Chungking correspondent of the N. C. plenty of notice, and I believe could have stopped and pillage whatever they could lay their hands Daily News writes on the 9th inst, as follows:- the row had he wished to do so. As it was, he upon. By the time the mandarins and their On the 28th of May, the fifth of the fifth allowed the Roman Catholic Mission, separated runners made their appearance on the scene moon, a riot occurred at the premises of the from his own yamen by a narrow lane only, the hospital and chapel had already been Canadian Methodist Mission, their hospital. to burn without an attempt to save it. We burned down. On the 29th and 30th of May dispensary, and chapel being looted and burned, think that if he gets his deserts he will finish (the 6th and 7th of the 5th Moon) the other Although the mob were kept at bay for an hour up without bis head. If he didn't instigate Protestant missions were wrecked and pillaged or two, and although yameus were near and the row he did nothing whatever to stop it, and in succession by the rowdies and desperadoes, soldiers' barracks were about five minutes' walk appears to have treated the foreigners as shabbily winding up with the tearing down and burning away, no attention was paid to requests for as he could. Up to date, we know of only two of the Roman Catholic Church and houses assistance. After resting for the night the places outside of Chengtu having been attacked. situated within a stone's throw of the Viceroy's mob began the next day, and when the day was These are both Roman Catholio stations to the yamen. Although in a capital like Chengtu there ended nothing remained of the eleven places south or south-west of the city. There have been is a large army and the various yamens bave a of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Mis.ramours about Kiating and Suichou and Ya- strong force of runners and thief-takers, they sions. In every case the officials made chou; but we know that Kiating was safe op made only a hollow show of pretence when a mere pretence of protection or flatly re- Monday last, although feeling was strained. ordered to suppress the riot, preferring to fused it. All took their cue from the Viceroy Here all is quiet. Various rumours are flying remain spectators. who had been degraded and seemed to think about, but the people are perfectly friendly. thing was the production by the rioters of But the most extraordinary notting worse could befall him. His hostility The Taotai, Paḥsion, and Chint'ai are working dead man's bead, two hands, and some to foreigners has been notorions for several together in taking precautionary measures, and human bones which they carried to the Chehsien's years, and he seems to have intended to give a we trust their promptness will have its effect. yameu charging the foreigners with · having parting hit as he was about to leave. Even Two processions have been stopped already, and murdered the man, declaring that they dug them when the flames were bursting out of the pre- the usual big one on the 20th of the thinese out of the mission compounds. I wonder where mises of the Roman Catholic Bishop, a stone's moon is put off for throw away, he lifted not a finger to help, merely there may be lies in the expected presence They also daubed the walls of the mission houses Any danger they managed to get these gruesome objects. remarking that this was a calamity for his so- of roughs from Chengtu; but if the officials with blood, saying that this was a proof that cessors to attend to. There is a mass of harrowing keep a stiff upper lip we are very hopeful people had been murdered by the foreigners. details which I cannot stop to give. No doubt that nothing will happen. The Taotai" had With regard to the missionaries, young and you will have heard them more fully from some his bodyguard out this morning at target prao old, a number of them were compelled to fly for one at or near the scene of trouble. Ladies with tice. There are said to be 320 of them, and their lives and crouch under the city walls ex- their little ones climbed over back walls and hid for they are armed with good European rifles and posed to the dews of heaven for a night. The next hoursin the dirtiest holes. When discovered there bayonets.
A man from Chengtu was day they were temporarily domiciled in the yaman were cases where ransoms were paid by both for- caught in one of the inns here last night, with a of the Huayang chehsien. As for the missionary eigners and native Christians. There were cases repeating rifle and five knives in his possession. buildings and chapels there is not a single one of fight from one mission to another, only to be He was at once laid by the heels and put to the now left in Chengtu. The desolation is .com. mobbed and compelled to flee again. The mem-torture, but we don't know whether be divulged plete It is also reported that soon after the bers of the American Methodist Episcopal, Mis-
news of the Chengtu riots was spread into the in- ston climbed by a ladder over a wall to a neigb- This is what the Chôngtu correspondent of land towns the mobs of the districts of Hsinchin bours' and remained twelve hours in a dirty the Shenpuo says as to the origin of the riots and Pengshan followed suit and the objectionable little loft, watching at the distance of six feet against missionaries in Sz-chuen province, com- rumours which had inflamed the populace of the destruction of their property. Some of the mencing with that city. We (N. C. Drily News) Chengtu are now being d sseminated in the lower Canadian Methodist missionaries who sought translate his account rather fully as it is interest-portions of the Yangtsze valley. The affair has protection at the soldiers' barracks were driven ing as being a Chinese view of the affair. out, one of the ladies with her little ones being kicked by the brutal soldiers. At length all took refuge at the yam n of the District Mrgistrate. This is now the twelfth day and they are still there without so much as a change of clothing. There are nearly a score of them, men and women, and a large number of small children. We do not know certainly about the Roman Catholics,
In the meantime the contagion is daily spreading. Yesterday we learned that Kiating- to and Yachoufu bad met the same fate as Chôngtu. Yachou is about 100 miles west of Kiating. The report is that the missionaries there have been beaten. Some of the Kisting missionaries took refuge in the yamen and some got away ou boats and have arrived at Chung king. As at Chêngtu, so at Kiating, the officials would render no assistance until the mob had done their work. he presence of students for the examinations furnished unlimited material for a mob. The Kiating riot occurred on the 4th of Juue, just a week after the work began at Chengtu. The Yachon riot was earlier thau the Kisting one, but we have not the particulars, Other smaller cities have met the same fate, and the list is almost daily increasing. Much ap- prehension is felt for the missionaries of the China Inland Mission scattered in several stations over the Chengtu plair, away from water and telegraph communication.
When the Kisting refugees passed Suichou they found most of the missionaries on boats a few miles below awaiting developments. The
anything."
a year.
upon
become such a grave problem that the future can bå only a matter of conjecture.”
'The following, the Peking and Tientsin Times count received in the yamên of the Viceroy of says, is a succinot statement of the official ac- Chibli at Tientsin; the statement made by the miscreant Liu-Viceroy Lin-in his own exoul- pation and defence :--
There was a procession, a Hui, on the streets who hustled him about. Finding himself hustled of Chengtu, and a foreigner got into the crowd. he used his stick; whereupon he was attacked by the mob and took to flight. He got into the house, fastened the door, and taking a gun fired on the mob, who had surrounded the house, killing two
"The Canadian Mission had been in existence in Cheugtu for several years. In the 4th moon of this year (May) a o rtain native woman in the city happened to be dangerously ill through chidbirth and in consequence her family engaged the services of a foreign dootor. It was not a success and the woman died. The family of the dead woman laid the blame the foreign doctor and from this time forth false impugning the honesty of the missionaries. rumours began gradually to
be spread about Anonymous placards also began to be posted up traducing and libelling the foreign missions, the most serious charges acousing the foreigners of killing young boys to obtain certain drugs and in some cases actually eating them. The mission-persons aries therefore reported the matter to the local authorities, requesting them to issue counter pro- clamations denying such charges and forbidding the posting of such libels in the future. But it must be confessed that the authorities paid no attention to the protestations of the missionaries. It is a popular qustom handed down by tradition in Chengtu for the people of the city and suburban villages to gather in large numbers at the military assembly grounds at the East gate of the city on the 5th day of the 5th moon (23th of May this year) or Dragon Festival, and forming into parties of hundreds and even a thousand or so to pelt green plums at each other: the rich providing this sort of ammunition, which is given free to those who wish to join the sports. It unluckily hap pened that a female convert in charge of several native pupils of the mission schools also went to
building, the foreign residents exosping to the Then the crowd gatted and burnt the yamên. Inside, the people found two Chinese children, kept in a cage of some kind. They were in a state of suspended animation. These children were taken to the yamên and skilful Chinese doctors were there called in, who, on ex- amining them, found some kind of black drug in. troduced into their nostrils which was the cause of their insensibility. By the use of remedies the doctors restored them to consciousness, when the children related how they had been kid- napped by the foreigner, who administered the drug, and they knew no more. Upon this dreadful crime being brought to light by an open examination in a Chinese Court of Law the people were fired with indignation and the disturbances were spreading in all directions, much to the grief of this virtuous Viceroy, who was powerless to control the disorder,