December 8, 1900.]
but which was sufficient in amount to make it worth while submitting the refuse to a process that would extract the latent wealth. So the great heaps of stone were removed, for smelting or some such process, and when they were taken away, from the ground beneath them sprang up plants, which in due time were covered with beautiful small yellow poppies of a kind not previously known to gardeners, It was supposed that the seed of the flowers must have lain hidden in the earth for centuries. May it not be like this with China? In her bosom have long lain dormant the seeds of what we call progress, which have been kept from germinating by the superincumbent weight of ideas, which-while they may contain in them- selves some ore worth extracting-must be refined in order to be preserved, and must be uplifted in order to enable the flowers of truth, purity, and happiness to flourish in the land. Two of the heaviest rubbish heaps that crush down the blossom progress are ignorance and prejudice. I trust that the Conference we have just held may prove of some use in removing
them.
CANTON.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Canton, 1st December. RETURN OF THE BLACK FLAG GENERAL.
The Black Flag general, Lin Yungfu, has returned to Canton and made calls upon Acting Viceroy Taksow and other officials. On his way back, when between Ching Yün and Ying Tak, he sighted several boats, and on enquiry was told that they belonged to certain pirates, who levied blackmail upon the cargo and pas- senger-boats on that route. Thereupon he ordered all the black flags on board to be taken
down, and made his boats look like merchant
fired into them.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
the burial of the bodies. It is said that the murder was an act of revenge; had the husband been at home, he would have been killed too.
PEKING AND TIENTSIN NEWS.
Times of the 24th ult. :--
The following items are from the P. & T.
River traffic with Tung-Chow has been sus pended.
The Medical College hero is endeavouring to re-open, and get fresh members to supply the place of those who have left.
Yu Che-yuen, President of one of the Boards, has reached Nanking, and handed Viceroy Liu
a special Edict from the Court.
Auctions of furs, silks and curios are held twice a week now in the Lyceum Theatre by Messrs. Doney and Moller, and continue to attract crowds,
The Chih Pao states that the newly organised Board of Revenue in Peking received Tls. 600,000 on the 11th through the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank from the South.
The British Authorities are reported to have
we learn there are
discovered three Honan officials who were known to have enlisted Boxers, Governor Yue, a Brigadier-General and another.
From private sources numbers of Boxers secretly practicing their arts in the City, and that the gentry dare not report them for fear of being assassinated.
We hear that the Peking line, which may be completed in about a month's time, will be run through the wall into Chinese City with a terminus near the Temple of Heaven. Good!
reconnaisance party comprising detachments of Capt. Wingate, accompanying a survey and the 16th Bengal Lancers and 24th Punjab In: fantry, left Peking on the 12th instant, taking
one month's rations.
The Chik Pao states that fifteen petty officials
455
days' stay in the neighbourhood, confirms the reports that the villagers, tradesmen and gentry- in the immediate vicinity did the looting and burning. The work of destruction began with in two hours of the withdrawal of the guard and ended June 25th. There were neither Boxers nor troops to speak of, the people alone being guilty, and they should be made to suffer severely.
CORRESPONDENCE.
[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.]
EVANGELISING THE CHINESE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESB."
Hongkong, 30th November. DEAR SIR-With reference to Mr. Banister's
remark in his address at the meeting of the
Annual Conference of the Church "Mission
Society, as to the intense materialism of the Chinese, which rendered the soil of Hongkong an unkindly soil for missionary work, I quito concur with Mr. Banister, for I find a great majority of the native Christians become unconverted as soon as they find themselves able to get on in this world without missionary ed hard to convert the Chinese, and when the assistance. Dr. Legge and Bishop Alford labour-
St. Paul's College was under their management a good many illustrious scholars were brought
language; but I now ask, how many of them up and educated by them in the English still adhere to the Christian faith? H.E. Wa Ting Fang, the present Chinese Minister at Washingtou, H. E. Lo Feng Luh, the present Chinese Minister at London, Mr. Ho Yow, the
vessels, preparing all the guns and rifles for of the Court siguified their willingness to Chinese Consul-General at San Francisco, a fight. On approaching the pirates his fleet secretly accompany the Emperor back to Pek. and Mr. Ma Kin Chung, late director of prepared and Liu Yung-fu killed several of them seized and beaten to death.
The pirates were quite un-ing, but the Dowager hearing of the plot had the China Merchants' Steamship Company, formerly were converts, but all now seem to them, bringing two back as proof of his deed.
have abandoned the Christian faith and become It is said that he and his soldiers will shortly considering some new methods of dealing with apostles of the Materialist. H. E. Wu Ting .proceed by order of the Viceroy to Waichow, Chingyün, Fayun, and Chutaoshan, to destroy the pirates and Triad Society men.
A NEW CANTON COMPANY.
A certain great capitalist, by name Fung Pak Lum, of the Sai Kwan district, is going to start a company (for Canton is now full of enterprise, and the Chinese authorities are about to farm out all descriptions of business to raise money) to take a monopoly of the Kuk- fao floating brothels and flower-boats, as well as all the brothels on shore. The company is to receive the name of The Society for the Pro- tection of Women and Girls." Fung Pak Lum estimates that his earnings will be immense, many applications having been sent in for shares. He has sent a petition to the Viceroy, and is awaiting an answer. This enterprise will probably be successful on ac- count of the straitened circumstances in which the Government finds itself.
A FAMILY MURDERED AT HEUNGSHAN.
The Chinese gentry in the Natiry City are fires that occur in the City, and of summoning the firemen, as they are afraid to practice the former custom of calling the firemen together with the foreign troops. by beating gongs, lest it create disturbance
Chên Shu-ping, a Military official who sur- rendered to the Allies when Tientsin City was taken, and undertook to trace out Boxers for the Provisional Government, is said by the Ghih l'ao to be chiefly occupied in squeezing for his own interests, and is making a good thing out of any Chinese he can terrorise into giving him
money.
A telegram was received at British head quarters here to the effect that the messenger from Taiynenfu had been sent to Paotingfu to report the arrival in the former place of five or six English and Swedish Missionaries who were believed to be dead. They had taken refuge in the mountains, and had been discovered and brought back by the Prefect of Taiyuenfu who is now anxious to escort them to the coast.
The name of only one missionary is given, Graham McKie. The Military Authorities at once notified the British Consul and the C.I.M.|
On the 25th ult. at 7 p.m. two thieves went into the family house of Lao Shang-sam at Heungshan and murdered eight persons-the wife, who was enciente, three sons aged three, four, The French Consul-General issued an express and six years respectively, two daughters, and two
on Thursday to the affect that the French servant-girls; the husband being absent. Late Concession has been extended from the present in the following morning one of the neighbours, dividing line of the British and French Con- who saw the door still shut, knocked and, hear-cessions to the mud-wall, and thence to the ing no answer to her summons, suspecting some boundary line of the Japanese Concession and thing wrong, called other neighbours, and with river at Machiaku, including all the territory their help burst open the door. On entering they and properties within these lines. The notice found dead bodies lying about in pools of blood nullifies all contracts made since the 17th June, on the ground. One of the servant-girls, aged and invites all holders of title-deeds prior to twelve, who was seriously wounded, was alive and that date to take their documents to the French still able to relate the perpetration of the cruel
Consulate to have them registered. We anti- deed. She said that on the evening in question cipate that some discussion will ensue in con- a man came into the house to await the return sequence of this abrupt announcement. of her master Lao Shang Sam, who was in a pawnshop, to talk about business. Her mistress made tea to entertain him, and kept him to dinner. Shortly afterwards another man, who was dressed in a long coat, also came in, and the two then proceeded to kill the whole family. The same girl also died of her wounds the next day. This is what the Chinese call the murder of nine lives and eight dead bodies. The affair was reported to the Magistrate, who held an inquest and ordered
Mr. Pyke who has just returned from Pei- taiho, confirms the previous reports of the destruction at that place. All the sheet iron and timber of the roofs, and every scrap of wood has been carried away or burnt. The dressed stones except those in the walls at the floor line, have also been hauled away. All the houses are very much alike and it would make a Peitaihoite sick at heart to see the roofless, broken walls of their before beautiful cottages. All the testimony gathered during a two
1
Fang told the American people that if the Christian ladder was the only way that leads to heaven he was sorry it was too narrow for his hearers to show him a real Christian. The him, and in his concluding speech he asked
other three gentlemen made similar anti-Chris- tian speeches at different parts of the world, and they all avowed that they are ardent disciples of Confucius. There is not the slightest doubt that when a (hinaman becomes a convert in China, he gains many advantages over his hea- then countrymen, but in a free British colony like Hongkong, where missionary aggression colours and does not hesitate to tell the public is not tolerated, he generally assumes his true that in his heart of hearts he is a true Chinaman.
Three years ago I witnessed in Hongkong a gigantic funeral procession done in a proper Chinese style, with Buddhist and Taoist priests and nuns saying prayers along the route, and the celebrated Chinese millionaire pastor who on enquiring I found the deceased was wife of
chapels. This lady during her life time was once adorned the pulpits of the London mission supposed to be one of the most devoted Chinese that a heathen burial ceremony was chosen on converts, and the public were surprised to find
I think missionary work in Hongkong is very this occasion. Under the above circumstances
difficult indeed.Yours, etc.,
JOHN CHINAMAN.
THE CASE OF KING LIEN-SHAN,
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS."
Macao, 30th November. SIR,-It may be remembered that last Febru ary, nearly a year ago, something was said in the Hongkong and Shanghai papers concerning the former Director of the Chinese Telegraph Co. at Shanghai, who was arrested at Macao and detained pending the question of his extradition. It may now interest some of your readers that the unfortunate individual, King Lion-shan, is still in prison, whatever has be come of the question of his extradition. His grievance is no slight one, and is well worth the sympathy of the foreign residents in China and indeed of all friends of justice. Events in
T