Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 64

1850.

Letter from B. J. Betteiksim.

41

assault, in which it was fully assumed that that they could forbid us the public roads if they liked. Here the matter rested. By and by the todzies, who accompanied me abroad, and whom I was glad to see ex-officio compelled to constitute part of my audiences, a circumstance rather advantageous for inviting the passers-by to stop, and especially for attracting the populace, which is almost mechanically drawn into imitation of the samorai (the class of literati, to whom our official out- riders and footmen belonged)—these todzies, instead of keeping near me as a watch, or as they used to call it, "a guard of honor," began to decamp as soon as I stopped in a market or street, and from hiding- places, hinted, or beckoned, or threatened the people away. Mrs. B., who went with me to the Sabbath afternoon meetings, as long as re- gular congregations awaited us at certain favorite spots, once saw an old fellow on whom this eye and finger mechanism was all quite lost, dragged off by force.

Such means, certainly, would dampen the zeal even of a European market assembly. Still it was not all at once, that government thought it prudent to disperse our public meetings. It took a year of persever- ing opposition, now hidden, now open, to enable even a despotic cabal like that we had fallen under since the king's death, to bring about a to- tal desertion of the places where I halted, and of the streets and lanes I passed through. First, there was a bustle, a running here and there, a rattling and clapping of shutting doors and windows, as if a devil in- carnate had come in their way; green grocers deserted their stalls, laborers ceased their work, and crews left their boats; women drag- ged their children in-doors in such haste and fright, as to make them scream out when they saw me again afar off. Often the noise, con- fusion, and bewilderment, rose to such a pitch that I was not always free from fear myself, and almost dreaded to walk about. My complaints to government were unheeded; but in fact we then had, and even now have, no government. Slaves rule over us; the authorities are inacces- sible. Who could say to whom my communications went? If a ver- bal or a written answer was returned, I could not say who was its au. thor, whether the magistrate or his messenger, we having proofs that a dispatch had been opened and resealed in my very house. In fact, the compradors whom government forces upon us are our masters, for without them we can not procure a morsel of bread, nor take our dis- patches to government beyond our own threshold; while, too, they are at the head of the spy and police force at work against us.

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My communications were often returned on the ground that they contained the uame of Jesus, or doctrines unknown in Confucianismi.

VOL. XIX. NO. 1.

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