180.
THE MISSIONARY QUESTION.
(Daily Press, 3rd September.) If any argument were needed in favour of the suspension for the present of missionary effort in the interior of China, it is to be found in the heartrending narrative of the sufferings of a party of missionaries while escaping from Pingyao, in Shansi, to Han- kow. The terrible story, as told in the N.-C. Daily News, shows how eight adults and six children left Pingyao on the 25th June and were subsequently joined by Mr. "and Mrs. GLOVER and two children and Miss GATES from Lu-an (all the party being members of the China Inland Mission), to make their way overland to Hankow, the nearest treaty port. They were fifty days accomplishing the journey, and five of them perished miserably on the way, and all of them suffered privations and ill-treatment almost unspeakable. Indeed, it is a marvel that any of them survived to tell the melan- choly tale of murderous cruelty inflicted upon them by. the callous-hearted people of Shansi. They had to leave Pingyao, where the Magistrate had always been friendly, because the savage Governor Yu HSIEN had practically ordered the destruction of all foreigners. The Pingyao Magistrate did
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND Hankow were mere walking skeletons. It is
only fair to add that so soon as the party entered the province of Hupeh, over which H. E. CHANG CHIH-TUNG rules, they met with great kindness from the Magistrates there and were supplied with all necessaries. In Shansi they had been hunted like wild beasts, and none of them would have escaped alive but for the selfish anxiety of the various officials that they should not die in their districts, probably inspired by a fear that in the future some reckoning might be called for.
[September 8, 1900,
THE CRISIS AND THE TELEGRAMS.
sex, which is totally opposed to Chinese ideas. We are not arguing that the Chinese are right, but we are of opinion that Chris- tianity should not be forced upon them. At any rate it is not the best preparation of the ground to go and scratch up a crop of prejudices. Neither is it desirable that anti-missionary outrages should be pros voked, or excuses for their occurrence be furnished. If Christian Missions are to achieve success in the most unpromising soil of the Celestial Empire, it will only be through careful living down of prejudices This is only one story out of many. It is and an apostolic example. The road for the the first of which anything like connected missionary in China is a hard one, with little details have been given, and it is enough to success to cheer him on the thorny way. turn even a "sluggard's blood to flame." It But if he elects to travel it he should not is bad enough to hear of our fellow country-expect to drag with him wife or children. men being tortured and roasted to death by It was not thus that St. PAUL set forth on the "Heathen Chinese," but to learn that his voyage, nor were the early pioneers ao- these pitiless fiends beat and stripped gently companied by their female relations. What born women and delicate children, and drove we are concerned with, however, is that them on the hard roads barefooted, bare- there shall never again be possible a repeti. headed, nearly nude under the blazing sun, tion of the pitiful stories of the last few hungry, thirsty, weary, and bruised with weeks, when helpless women and children of cruel blows from heavy sticks, is something our race were exposed to the jeers, jibes, that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven outrage, and unbridled violence of inhuman to the Governor of Shansi, whose hostile Chinese mobs. proclamation provoked this display of cold- blooded ferocity. If that infamous official what he could for them, however. He fur-
is permitted to live and exult in his cruel nished them with an escort and sent them deeds, it will reflect undying shame on the off to Tai-yuan, the capital, 150 li distant; SALISBURY Government. One of the items (Daily Press, 5th September.). but when they had arrived within about 20 li in settlement of the long account with the Of all languages Chinese lends itself with from this city, they were met by a native Chinese Government should be the surrender the greatest difficulty to the electric tele- Christian who was fleeing south. He told of this man to British justice. A mere in graph system as at present in use. The them the Inland Mission premises there had
demnity-the usual salve proposed and too reason is simple; there is no settled system already been burned, that the Roman Catho- often accepted by the British Foreign Office of phonetic writing, but each man transli- lie Mission had been torn down, and that will not meet the present case. What is terates according to his own ideas and his the Baptist Mission was surrounded by a wanted is the swift and relentless punish- own dialect, and the tones-in many respects raging mob. Alarmed by this intelligence, ment, not of the tools, but of the instigators the most important indication cannot be they turned back towards Pingyao, and of these crimes against humanity. We are represented in the present codes. The writ- their escort at once left them. They reached not speaking now of the lives lost in the ten language again does not address itself to Lucheng, where there was an Inland Mis- British Legation and in the hostilities, but the ear, but has to be mentally, translated sion station, in a state of utter destitution, of the heartless murders of women and into the colloquial with the assistance of the having been stripped of all the money and children in the interior. Because the Min-eye, and, as a sound is frequently represented valuables they possessed to satisfy the exor-isters and their subordinates were not mas- by a dozen or two of characters, there is no bitant demands of the people in the places sacred, it does not follow that other wrongs certainty as to the meaning of the sentence through which they passed. There they should go unatoned for, and we trust that if merely the sounds of the language as rested in peace for two days, but had to public opinion will be brought to bear on
written be transmitted. To get over the resume their flight at midnight with noth- the Government in this matter. We also difficulty the Telegraph companies have ing but a donkey-load of bedding and hope that the British Government will at devised a list of some six thousand charac clothes and some silver to pay their expenses the same time, no matter what may be the ters in most common use, and to each at- en route. They were soon relieved of these opposition, absolutely refuse to allow, in tached a number. Hence every Chinese possessions. About 40 li from Lucheng future, any women to accompany missionar- message sent over the lines is of necessity they were stopped by a mob, who demanded ies into the interior of China. They cannot, translated into a numeral code, and has to money, and then proceeded to help them- perhaps, prevent men from foolishly going be written back on arrival. This system selves, leaving the poor fugitives not only in search of a martyr's crown; they can only naturally lends itself to cryptic code mes completely destitute but stripped of all their decline to afford them protection beyond sages, and it requires but a slight change in clothes except a single pair of native drawers the Treaty Port limits; but they can, we the code-book in ordinary use to render a each. Neither sex nor age was respected or think, justly refuse to allow them to take message unintelligible to any but sender compassionated, and in this pitiable condition their female relatives. It is monstrous and receiver. During the time then of the they were driven along the road by men armed that young and innocent children should be imprisonment of the Ministers at Peking, with clubs, from village to village, new bands wantonly exposed to the horrible cruelties hundreds of messages must have passed be- of tormentors turning out from each and that were inflicted upon the hapless little tween the higher officials; bu' of there, ex- hounding them on. Neither food nor water
ones in Shausi. They are not free agents cept that here and there an operator may was obtainable, except grass from the way in the matter, and they should be have made a wide guess as to the meaning, side and water from filthy puddles. Miss protected from the frightful risks their pro- nothing was known of the contents. Many RICE, one of the party, succumbed to the genitors cheerfully undertake. The Roman of the pretended messages from the Capital inhuman beatings and torturing to whicli Catholic missionaries, being celibate, do not which threw such discredit on the corres- she was subjected about 50 north of expose tender infants to the savage bruta pondents of the papers at home seem Tsechau-fu, in Shansi. The full details of lities of Celestial mobs. Neither should to have originated in this way. News from her martyrdom are almost too sickening for their confrères. Let them also take the vow
the capital was at a premium, and no Chi- recapitulation, and her colleague Miss of celibacy and not drag tenderly nurtured nes official, where there is a possibility of HOUSTON fared little better, for, when she at women into the squalid cities and villages leakage, is proof against the temptation of length got away from her torturers and of the Central Kingdom, to be exposed to dollars. Sometimes the telegraph clerk did rejoined the party, her brain was protrud- studied insult and open violence. We have possibly find a clue to what was passing ing from a wound in her head. She strug- had enough of this kind of thing. It is through his finger tips; more frequently tak gled on with them, however, until they time that the Government intervened and ing what he knew, and what he surmised, reached Yunmung, in Hupeh, where she put down its foot in this matter. It is ex- he made an attempt to join the two.
At died. Mrs. COOPER, another lady of the tremely doubtful, we think, whether the last came the great coup. Not one word party, died at Yingshan of the hardships of presence of women missionaries in China hai come from the Legations: Admiral the journey, her sufferings having been works for good at all. Their influence SEYMOUR had gone with an insufficient terrible from exposure, blows, and starvation. among converts may be beneficial, but to force to make a dash for Peking, and had Two of the children likewise died untimely, counterbalance that they arouse among the been closed in on all sides and not a word done to death by the brutal peasantry. The
mass of the population a great deal of pre-escaped as to what had become of him and surviving children when they arrived at judice, from the status they claim for their his small band. Tientsin was being attack-