Foreign Restos Although our political position is unsatisfactory, our relations with the people have been generally friendly. The old awe of the foreigner has greatly disappeared, but has been succeeded by the tolerance of habit. There have been collisions, but they have generally had special causes, and have not arisen from sheer dislike to foreign intrusion. There have been, as usual, missionary troubles; notably at Che-moh in Shantung (M.-C. Herald Jane 13th), and at Hoochow (W.-C. Herald Dec. 17th). Both wereeveutually settled by negotiation. A serious riot also occurred in the French Concession at Shanghai Herald May 9th), through a dispute between the Ningpo guild and the French Council. The latter wished to lay out and metal a yond which had been traced on an old plan of the Settlement, and which they contended therefore had been virtually reserved as Municipal property. The Chinese urged that the road would ran through an old graveyard, and offered to give other adjacent land. The Council refused; much excitement arose, large crowds gathered about the Joss House, and eventually a collision with the police precipitated a riot. The mob burned and gutted a number of houses, maltreated several French persons, and were proceeding wildly with the work of destruction, when the Volunteers were called out and sailors were landed from the various men-of-war, At'their approach the rioters scattered. A proclamation issued next day by the French Consul-General, terminated the difficulty by yielding the point at issue. M. Godeaux's action was severely criticised, and time has not altered popular opinion. The great majority of foreign residents favoured the Chinese view of the question at issue between the Guild and the Council; but every one condemned M. Godeaux's concession under mob pressure, as politically bad and a dangerous precedent, He acted, moreover, without the knowledge and in opposition to the wish of his colleagues, who were loyally standing by him in his difficulty, "The punishment of the rioters and the restoration of the damaged property should have been insisted on, as pre liminary to any further negotiation, An affair, trifling in itself, but which gathered some importance from the violent action of the Chefoo Taotai, occurred in connexion with the Lighthouse work on the Shantung Promontory (W.-0. Herald, Ang. 8th). Some dispute arose between the workmen and the country people; a foreigner in charge of the work was assaulted, and struck one of his assailants with the butt of a revolver, which wont off and killed a man behind. The Chinese of course accused him of murder, and he was brought up for trial before H. M. Consul, in the presence of the Taotai. No sufficient evidence was forthcoming, and Mr. Lay acquitted the accused, when the Taotai was guilty of most unseemly violence, declaring at first, that no one should leave the Court till the judgment was altered. Mr, Lay, however, was quite equal to the occasion; the matter passed over, and the accused left Chefoo. He was subsequently re-arrested by the order of the Chief Judge, and tried but acquitted by jury. We quote the case chiefly to record the impertinence in which the Chinese magistrate indulged. We can understand that, as it was clearly a bullet from the foreigner's pistol which caused death, he was to the Chines mind guilty of murder. But no Chinese magistrate would have ventured ten years ago, to comport himself as did the Taotai of Chefoo towards a British Consul.
Riots have also occurred in Foochow, in connexion with the projected
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.