February 18, 1899.]
and liabilities, the several estates stand as usual at their actual cost, which is consider
́ ́CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
A system which requires torture to extract the truth, where thieves dwell in the courts of
143
have absolutely nothing to gain by exaggera- tion. Secondly, as to the
détermsued
ably under their market value. Mortgages are justice, where Latire watchmen belong to the here of the remains, whiching to view
TH. 130,500, less then they were at this time guild of thieves, and the yamen gates are last year, and some portion of these will shortly guarded by thieves, what with such examples be paid off. The Innds, withdrawn are devoted and patterns to fellow can be expected of a to new buildings giving an equally good return, poor down-trodden, degraded people These but it may be permitted to regret that the people who have done the horrible deed have been funds at our command do not allow of our endoited Ly those who have for years circulated gaging in this business to a larger extent. We the vile pamphlets against and openly heaped propose to recruit these by the issue of new contumely upon the foreigner. The Ko fao. debentures whenever the condition of the hui pamphlets are the work of the gentry, money market shall allow of our placing them and in the whole system of treatment of readily. In conclusion I may say that our foreigners from Peking to the borders estimates for 1899 promise a not less favourable of India, the policy has been one and the return than that of the present year. for unless same. This crime is the legitimate fruit of that something untoward occurs during the year we policy. It is seen here in the last two weeks look for rentals considerably exceeding those where a proclamation has been put out by the
1898.
highest civil official, a Banlin. just "from Feking and in which he hers contum.ely on the foreigner and calls them by the name of Yang Jan. He tells the people the missionary is but a common illiterate, his doctrine but the vomit of corrupt. Buddhism and Taoism, only to be compared to Mohammadanism, and that Chris tians are a commonclass, harmless and not to- be feared. This and much more at a time when persecution is everywhere rife and martyrs are many. I submit is not this policy responsible for the outbreaks ?—China Gazette correspon- dent,
No questions being asked,
The Chairman moved, and Mr. Jenner Hogg seconded the adoption of the accents as pre- sented. Carried nanimously.
The Chairman proposed the payment of a final dividend at the rate of six per cent. to every shareholder paid up to cate.
Mr. C. J. Dudgeon reconded and the resolu {tion/was.carried.
Mr. W. H. Poate proposed and Mr. J. M. Young seconded the re-election of Mr. C. J. Dudgeon as a director of the Company. The proposition was unanimously agreed to.
Mr. C. Thorne proposed the re-appointment of Mr. G. R. Wingrove us auditor of the Com- pany for the ensning year, and Mr. Purcell having seconded, the motion was unanimously 'greed to.
The meeting terminated with a hearty vote of thanks to the Chairman and Directors ac-
corded on the proposition of Mr. C. Thorne. ANC. Daily News.
{
'SHOCKING BARBARITIES TO A
MURDERED FRENCH PRIEST IN HUPEH.
Ichang, 29th January. >The body of the late Rev. Father Victorin Jean Delbrousk-captured by the Hwei-fei or ¡Ko-lao-hui, and murdered after horrible torture for five days at Chih-keo-shan, arrived here last week. It came down unattended and was put out on the beach in a beggar coffin without valid, and left for the inspection of the rabble, who indulged their eyes and expressed their contempt for it in every possible manner. A telegram from the Viceroy stirred the Prefect up to the point of having it removed to the Hwang-lin temple.
«Examinations were made by French physicians ...and Dr. Collins gave it a cursory examination on Sunday morning. It was found in a good state of preservation, owing to coldness of atmosphere and the fact that the vital organs
+1
had been removed.
BAO.
The head had been severed from the body, the eyes extracted and the brain removed, an opening being made above the forehead at the djucture of the frontal and sagittal sutures. There was. 1à cut in the occipital region, doubtless from 80 executioner's The trunk had been opened near the Komedian line, and the heart,
astomach, and small intestines removed. There 4 had been attempted removal of the left arm and. leg, the tissues being cut to the bone, but the vibone not broken or dislocated. There was a
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Ichang. 31st Jannary.
For some
I have to-day seen a sad and pitiful sight which 1 wish I could bring home to some of those benighted states men who will fatuously insist on regarding and treating this nation of China as a civil:sed or even sen.i-civilised people. What I saw-and the horror of it will remain with me for many a long day—was all that was left of what but little more than a month ago was a fine, enthusiastic, young Roman Catholic priest who came out some eighteen months ago to bring light and religion to a people who have done him to death in a manner that could not be surpassed by the wildest African savage. Father Victorin was a Belgian, not quite twenty- Dine years of age, and was appointed by his Bishop some two months ago to a Ronan Catholic station at Ehibknsbai, in the Patung district, about 100 miles from here. time past there has been a feeling of enmity against the CalLolics smouldering among the evilly disposed, and this at last came to a head in un attack on the Catholic converts at Shihku- shan. Father Victorin at first made his escape, but was so unfortunate as to le caught by a roving band of the rioters who atter beating him cruelly and stripping him almost naked, tied him on a board and brought him in triumph back to his former home, where a luge band of been stirred up by the burning-out and slangh. rioters was assembled whose evil passions had
tering of converts in which they had been indulging. In sight of his late home they tied gladly draw a veil over the rest of his ghastly the poor priest up to a tree, and here I would
scene, but that I feel that the world should know of what the Chinese in their Lour of triumph over a defenceless foreigLei are cap. able, and I would warn all readers who are in- clined to be squeamish to read no further, or to skip the next few lines.
As this poor man bung from the_tree_to which he was tied, pieces were cut from his lungsthighs and eaten by his tormentors. From the state of his poor body fire was evidently applied Finally his body was cut open from the chest to it, and slugs were fired into con vital parts.
to the bottom of the abdomen, be was disemlo- welled, and the various organs were taken out and eaten by these semi-civilised people, who at the same time drank his blood. He was also mutilated in a way that cannot be described, and his head cut off; there being a hole in the top of the skull large enough to put one's fist iv. The head-which I may add is entirely cleaned out of the brain. etc,—is easily recog- nisable, bearing the small brown moustache which he wore. One eye was evidently gouged
shot wound in the back and right hand, doubt less due to the fact it was tied behind. Te whole body was mutilated. The refinements et torture were practiced, bruises, burns, cuts. Į doubt of a worse case of fiendish torturing of ~mbelpless wictim is on record.
The history of the case is a record of vagery of the perpetrators, and the wilful neglect and criminal connivance of the Batung Magistrate; if rumours are true the facts we know are sufficient
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and persistent demands for their recovery, were finally brought in by the officials much as those of a workhouse pauper would be treated. To expose the remains in a native temple to the view, not only of foreigners, but of any Chinese who chose to come in and look, strnek most of us at first as not only bad taste on the part of the Mission, which is responsible for this procedure, but as question- able policy, seeing that every native who came to look would probably regaïd it as evidence of his countrymen's triumph over the “foreign- devil." But looking at it from all possible points of view, which must include the Chinese, one is inclined to think that the mission took a wise course. In the first place, they firmly refused to have the remains brought inside their'com. ponnd and here they were unquestionably right. The body once inside the Mission wills, the Chinese officials would in all probability have at once declared to the Viceroy and to the world that it bore no signs of mutilation, and would have promulgated or encouraged the belief that any such signs must be the result of the Fathers' machinetions in order to make their tale good. Equally, the only way to bring home to the Chinese world the outrage that had been committed was to insist, as the Fathers wisely did, on the body bring-reverently and decently, of course exposed to view in a pro- minent local temple such as it now lies in, with native official employés keeping watch always with the priests, so that it can never be said that the body was tampered with by either side. All this, though repulsive to a a cultivated Europeau mind; is quite correct form & Chinese point of view. The remains are how enclosed in a fitting ccffin, which is sealed with the seals of both district (ficlals and of the Mission. pending the settlement of the case at Hankow.
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Finally, it is necessary to remind the foreign communities of China that this is not a special case such as is rot likely to happen elsewhere, Large foreign communities are, of enige, efe. the native mols leing utterly cowardly, but in the can of anal connunits and iolated. foreigners, such a tragedy as the love may be enacted at #1.3 1. It is idle for cptimist aduners of the Chinese to close their eyes to everything that is geing, cu grennd ́tl'em, and murmur: "Ch, quite impossible be writer wio bas klow foe cople for some years, nakes Teld to say that in every town in Chine, there are always plenty of savage suffans repared to carry ont such fien- dish atrocities as abovē described, at any moment as with all Asiatics, there is only one method, they may get the chance, and with such people, and that is, u show of force and of the deter- mination to use it at a moment's notier, if necessary.
It is sericely nerded surely to add, in conclu- sion, thet-upart from our common humanity- such a case as the above affects us all. On these occasions, it is noteworthy that the natives in their fiendish passion to rot say: Blay this or that countryman, or this or that religionist,” 'but simply Sha (or Tu) zang-jen" Slay the foreigner ! "— N. C. Daily News correspondent.
HAM, KWANG PESU,
Shanghai, 7th February. There were various rumours éniengst local mandarina on Sunday and yesterday with regard to grave news recently arrived from Peking concerning the failing health of the Emperor Kwang Hsu, and this report has been. em- phasised by a telegram in the Universal Gazette to the effect that "the Emperor's illness is very serious." A member of the staff of this paper called upon several influential native officials yesterday on the above subject and from one of these mandarins he obtained a glimpse a confidential letter received from à Palace Now first, as to how these particulars are official at Peking. The letter in question stated known. The poor remains tell tpeir own tale that the fear of the Empress Dowager of the to begin with, and I have seen, to my sorrow, | Ministers of Great Britain, America, etc., alons the state of things that would manifestly result provented the summary poisoning of the Em- from such treatment as I have described: Inperor immediately after the coup d'état
cdition to this, details are gradually leaking | September list, and the ccfsequence - wa cut through native eye-witlerres, who are not | that the health of the Emperor gi
will pay the pens convict him. The Hwei sei | out.
but in reality both there and here the officials seem culpable for the death and after indignities at least.
"It is inconceivable that a people could be so “ganken in barlarism. Hung up for five days, braten, shot, tortured, and finally disembowel d. out down and head cut of. Is it not proof of the utter barbarians of this people ? –
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of a
ally
in any way connected with the Mission and recovered the iden being that * klow foison-
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