(B)
THE FOOCHOW OUTRAGES.
STORY OF RIOT TOLD BY LADY MISSIONARY.
FOREIGN WOMEN
MALTREATED.
The following story with regard to the recent Foochow outrages is culled from the N.-C. Daily News, of last Wednesday, which states:-
Further interesting details of some of the atrocities committed against foreigners, principally mis- sionaries, in Foochow by bandit soldiers who carried the emblem of the 17th Army, and an enraged mob, were brought to Shanghai yesterday by Mrs. H. D. Mat- thews, whose husband is superinten- dent of the Church Missionary Society Hospital. Mrs. Matthews arrival yesterday evening in the I.-C. S. Yusong.
Mrs. Matthews, herself, had her rings seized from her fingers by soldiers while theatened by others who pointed their knives at her, as much as to say, "If you don't give us the rings, your fingers will be cut off." Mrs. Matthews was spar- ed the personal violence to which several of the missionary women were subjected, but both her and her daughter's pockets were rifled and their house looted by the soldiers.
Tribute to Personal Servants.
Mrs. Matthews paid great tribute to her own personal servants and to the hospital servants saying,
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they were simply wonderful to the foreigners." At the hospital the local attendants dressed in uni- forms of soldiers who had been treated there and stood guard out- side, passing themselves off as part of the rioting army who were sup- posed to be doing guard duty on the premises. In this manner they protected the buildings from be- ing looted. By various pretexts her personal servants managed to save many of the family's personal belongings, although much bedding and clothing were taken in the initial raid.
Mrs. Matthews credited her ser- vants with great heroism in accom- plishing a feat which the ordinary Chinese would not dare to think of. It was either the first or second night of the riot that the servants qvercame one of the goldiers who was bent on looting the premises. They took him to the police station
and he was turned over to the mili- tary to be summarily executed the next morning.
Lies About The Spanish Nuns.
According to Mrs. Matthews, the trouble was precipitated through a ruse which had been prepared by the agitators and directed against the nuns in the Spanish Mission. These nuns' duty in part was to save infants from death by exposure or starvation. The agitators secur- ed the bodies of about 25 dead in- fants and attributed their death to the Catholic missionaries boiling them. The mob, became excited and in a short while were in sufficient mass to attack the nuns and priests. Women And Children Attacked.
After despoiling the Catholic! Mission premises, the soldiers turn- ed their attention to several other mission premises, including the Anglo-Chinese Girl's School, the Church Mission Society Hos- pital (Women's Division) and the Methodist Episcopal compound. It seemed as if in most cases the sol- diers and mob attacked the women and children rather than the men. At the Anglo-Chinese Girls' School the soldiers attacked a foreign school teacher and with their knives cut the women's outer garments to pieces, then seizing and tearing most of the remaining clothing from their bodies. The women ran screaming with the bandits in pur- suit. They were finally rescued by friendly soldiers and escorted to safety amid the curses and epithets of the mob.
It was in her own home that Mrs. Matthews suffered indignities when she was forced to take her rings from her fingers and had to witness ruffians searching the pockets of her 13-year-old daughter. The sol- diers then took other clothing from the beds. They became alarmed, it seemed to Mrs. Matthews, at the approached of other soldiers and left before they had completed their villainous work. The local police made very real efforts on their be- half, and both she and her daughter were taken to the police station and protected until they could go to the British Consulate.
Mr. Matthews Attacked.
Mr. Matthews returned to his home several days later and some- one aware of his presence threw a miniature bomb over the fence which, as it exploded, struck a Chinese child. Mr. Matthews had also been attacked and stabbed slightly during one of the various melees. In deference to Chinese Christians he has remained away from his home and the hospital since that time, a policy which all missionaries are now pursuing.
A Chinese hospital, the head of which is a Chinese Christian doctor, was also looted, probably because the head did not subscribe to the theory of the infants' murder by the nuns.
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