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the Dowager has fled Peking. Another and far more probable report is that she is in the seclusion of the Palace, knowing little or nothing of what has occurred all round her, as the Reactionaries do not communicate the despatches of the Tsungli Yamen. Every day but em- phasizes the testimony that her Government either fears the Boxers or is in collusion with them. Had Li Hung-chang been here, the sedition would never have been allowed to gather head; but every resolute official who dares commend strong measures has been snubbed.
Li's friends all maintain that he has been sent south because the Two Kwang are to be the centre of the coming storm.
AN IMPERIAL DECREE WHICH ENCOURAGED THE RIOTERS.
The following is the edict referred to in our telegram from Shanghai, published in Monday's issue, which was said to have encouraged the Boxers. For the translation we are indebted to the N.-C. Daily News, to whom it was com- municated by telegraph. It is dated 6th June, and runs :-
""
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND ing war against the Christians. In the mean- time, we find discontented spirits in conjunction with lawless ruffians joining in the movement for their own ends; riots are the order of the day; railways are destroyed and churches are burnt down. Now the railways were constructed by, and are the property of the Government, whilst churches were built by the missionaries and their converts for their own occupation. Do these Society-men and others then think that they will be allowed to destroy and burn at their own sweet will? In thus running riot these people are simply opposing themselves to the Government. This is really beyond reason. We, therefore, appointed Chao Shu-ch'iao, Grand Councillor and Governor Adjunct of Peking, to proceed yesterday as our Imperial Commissioner to re- store peace and to call upon the people and Society-men to immediately disband and return each man to his own avocations and daily work. Should traitors and revolutionary Society-men try to stir up the people to raise up and pillage and destroy the countryside, we hereby call upon the I Ho Chuan people to hand over to the authorities the ringleaders for punishment according to the laws of the land. Should any be so misguided as to persist in dis- obeying these our commands they shall be treated as rebels, and we hereby warn them that when the Grand Army arrives, their fathers, mothers, wives and children will be separated from one another and scattered. their homes destroyed and they themselves slain. They will also bring upon themselves the stigma of disloyalty and of being false to their country, for it will then be too late to repent. Our heart is filled with pity when we think of the retribution that will then overwhelm our people. We, therefore, hereby declare that if after this warning, should there be still any who refuse to obey our commands, we will immediately order the Generalissimo, Jung Lu, to send Generals Tung Fu-hsiang (Kansu Corps), Sung Ch'ing and Ma Yü-k'un (Szechuan Corps), with their commands to punish these rebels and to disperse them. Finally, in sending troops out the primary purpose is to protect the law-abiding people; but we now hear that those sent out by the Chihli provincial authorities have not only failed in affording such protection and restraining evil characters but, on the con- trary, have themselves been guilty of preying upon the countryside. We now hereby com- man Yü Lu, Viceroy of Chihli, to investigate this matter at once, and also to send trusty de- puties to make secret investigations. If it be found that these military officials have indeed been guilty of encouraging their men to loot and pillage, such guilty officers are to be sum- marily executed. There must be no leniency or mercy shown to such. Let this our decrce be copied out on yellow paper and posted through out the country as a warning to people and that all may know our commands.
The Western religion has existed and been disseminated throughout China for many years, while those who disseminated it have done noth- ing except to exhort people to do good. More over, converts to the religion have never, under the protection of religion, raised up disturbances: hence converts and the people at large have always remained at peace with one another, each going his own Way without let or hindrance. Of late years, however, with the constant increase of Western churches throughout the country and the consequent overwhelming numbers of couverts joining them, men of evil character have steal thily gained a footing into their ranks, making it difficult, under the circumstances, for mission- aries to distinguish the good from the bad amongst the converts. Taking advantage of this, these evil characters have accordingly, under the guise of being Christians, harassed the common people and bullied the countryside; but we are of opinion however that, perhaps, such a condition of affairs cannot have been viewed with favour by the Missionaries them selves. As to the I Ho Chuan (Patriots and Champions of Peace) Society, this organisation was first prohibited during the reign of the Emperor Chia Ching (1795/1820). Owing, however, to the fact that, of late, the members of this Society simply trained themselves for pur- poses of self-protection and to defend their homes and villages from attack, and moreover because they had abstained from creating trouble We [did not issue our ban of prohibition according to precedent but] merely sent repeated instruc- tions to the local authorities concerned to keep a proper restraint on the movements of the Society. We pointed out to the said authorities that the present was not a question of whether these people were Society-men or not, but that the point was whether, being banded together, their object was to create trouble in the coun- try or not. If, then, the Society-men should indeed rise up and break the peace it should be the duty of the authorities to make a strict search for the lawbreakers and punish them according to law. Whoever these parties may be, whether Christians or Society-men, the Throne makes no difference in its treatment of them, for they are all the subjects (children) of the Empire. Moreover, even in cases of litigation between Christians and the common people our instructions have ever been that the authorities settle them according to the rights of the matter, no favour being allowed to be shown to either party. It transpires, however, that our commands have of late years never been obeyed. The officials of the various pre- fectures, subprefectures, departments and dis- tricts have been proved to have neglected their duties; they have neither acted in friend- ly conjunction with the missionaries, sym- pathised with the people under them in their difficulties, nor settled litigation in the spirit of impartiality, and the consequence
:
June 16, 1900.
on his
“Then a man came forward and asked one of my friends to give him some blow stomach. He gave him five blows, but they did not appear to hurt him at all. A brother of mine then asked to be allowed to try. The Boxer made no objection, whereupon my brother, who is a very muscular man, gave him two blows which nearly killed him; he could not stand a third blow. The next day he vomited blood. Then he had consumption and died shortly afterwards.
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Another man got a chopper and – began striking his stomach with it. He however took care only to strike the soft part of his stomach, and he did himself no harm. It was just like striking an india-rubber ball
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Then the man was foolish enough to ask someone to chop him on the arm, saying that it would do him no injury, He was chop- ped on the arm with the result that his arm was nearly cut in two.
"Besides this they allowed anyone to strike them with a bundle of iron bars. When struck with the bundle they cannot be hurt much, but one out of our party asked to be allowed to strike a Boxer with a single bar. He got per- mission. and gave the Boxer a blow which almost disabled him.
"When these men go about giving exhibitions in the streets they have a lot of boys as accom- plices When they have got a crowd round them one of the Boxers will call out "get me a boy," and one of these boys will step out of the crowd. The Poxer will then profess to mesmerise him, and will order him to do all sorts of things which he was been previously trained to do.
These men when worshipping hang up characters representing Confucianism, Buddism, and Laoism, the tablets also containing signs representing seeing and hearing."
DEPARTURE OF TROOPS FROM ·
HONGKONG.
The Indo-China Steam Navigation Company's steamer Hinsang cleared Hongkong for the north at 1 p.m. on the 15th inst, with 400 members of the Hongkong Regiment and Asiatic Artillery aboard, 200 of the Hongkong-Regiment who were to have gone being left behind owing to want of accomodation. It has been arranged that 400 members of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers shall follow in H.M.S. Terrible to-day or Sun- day.
Major F. Morris, of the R.W.F., will be in command, with Major G. R. St. John, R.A., second in command.
Those departing were:--Major G. R. St. John, Commanding Officer, Hongkong-Singa pore Battalion Royal Artillery; Captain E. G. Waymouth, Divisional Adjutant, R.A.; Captain Tulloch, Captain W. St. C. W. Bland, Lieuten- ant Lewis, Captain Duff, Lieutenant G. Badham Thornhill, R.A.; Captain E. L. Berger, Captain E. C. Rowcroft, Captain P. G. Anderson and
A HONGKONG CHINAMAN'S EX- Lieutenant E. C. L. Wallace, Hongkong Regi-
PERIENCE OF THE BOXERS.
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ment; Captain H. V. Prynne, Royal Army Medical Corps; Lieutenant Leary, Army Ord- nance Department; thirteen native officers; one In view of the attention directed towards the warrant officer and close on 400 non-commis. "Boxers up north, it may interest our readers sioned officers and men. Of these 200 men are to know that men practising the same tricks as from the Hongkong Regiment, the remainder these people are going about the colony and are being drawn from the Hongkong-Singapore Bat- gathering to themselves quite a number of talion of the Royal Artillery. The force is fully adherents. There is no reason to believe, how-equipped for two months' campaigning and is ever, that there is any conspiracy afoot, the supplied with 7-lb R.M.L. guns and the object of the propagandists being, apparently, 2.5 mountain guns. Three hundred men of merely to make money. They rent rooms in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers are held in readiness different parts of the colony and give exhibi- to embark on H.M.S. Terrible to-morrow. The tions calculated to make the ignorant believe officers selected for service are Major F. that they are invulnerable, and as they declare Morris, Captain J. H. Gwynne, Captain H. M. that all who join them, paying $10 as entrance Richards, Lieutenant H. Rotheram, Lieutenant fee, will be equally blessed, they are scooping in O. S. Flower (Acting Adjutant), Lieutenant a fair sum of money every week.
F. J. Walwyn, and Lieutenant O. 8. Owen, while Major Watson, R.A.M.C., will command
the medical staff.
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This not the first time the "Invulnerables have appeared in Hongkong. They worked the place some years ago, and a Hongkong China- man the other day gave one of our representa- tives an account of a visit which he paid and some friends to one of their exhibitions given in a club in Hollywood Road, Said he
“When we reached the place the master Boxer
The trial trip came off on the 9th inst. in Manila Bay of a new river gunboat, the Raleigh, which has been built by Messrs. Riley, Har greaves and Co., of Singapore, for the US. Government. The Raleigh, and her twin-sister with a full load, their tonnage is 800, and they long and accommodate 120 men beside the crew The armament has not yet been decided on: One of these boats will be employed on patrol, duty on the Cagayan River.
has been that those concerned began to hate one and his followers were on their knees saying the Charleston, draw about 18 inches 100 ft.
another, the enmity becoming deeper and deeper as occasions for ill will multiplied. On account of this, therefore, we now find the members of the I Ho Chuan Society banding themselves together as village militia and deolar-
prayers, during which they threw charms in water which they drank. They declared that this made them invulnerable, and they then commenced their exhibition, beginning with swallowing knives and so on.
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