Our readers may remember reading a letter from the Hongkong Daily Press Correspondent at Canton, which in our columns a few days ince, stating that on account of some accusations made by the Chinese Hongkong papers concerning the loyalty of the Christian Tartars at Canton, the Tartar General commanding there had made investigations into those statements and had found them devoid of foundation. Wo uow translate a letter addressed by one of these Tartars to the Hw Pao, which appeared in Weduesday morning's issue of that On the 25th day of the 11th mon' (24th ape
December) the Chinese paper at Hongkong slated that "certain Tartars from Canton had gone to Aunam to aid the French in their fighting in that place, and having been caught by the Black Flag Chief Liu Tung-fu had been sent back to Canton, and that H.E. the Viceroy had accordingly deputed officials to try them and if found guilty to make them suffer punishment." Upon reading the above, I was exceedingly surprised, and having translated the item into Manchu T sent it into the Tartar encampments in this city. Upon reading it, they unanimously stated that they had heard nothing about the matter; hence in justice to them and all of us it la extremely important that the said matter might be explained and made public. Upon investigation you will find that of the Tartar soldiers in Canton, all of them are educated men, They have to study the Chinese written language in the Ming Tah College (College for the Propagation of the Classics of the Ming Dynasty); there is the Tung Wen College for tenchiiny foreign languages, and there are also the Tsing Shu (Manchu Classic) public schools, Largo and small there are eighteen of them, all of which were established for the education of these tars. We Tartars are divided into two {LON—~einmely._ tha Mai othe Chinese Bannermen, each being composed of eight banners. Exch banner has a Primary School Teacher, who is employed by the officials, These torchers of coitrse are not included among the private schools.
The Chinese papers at Hongkong also stated that there are a great number of Christians amongst us. As I have observed it amongst us Tartars, we all have stadicd and appreciate the teachings of Confucius and Mencius; hence, not only are there none amongst us who have embraced the Roman faith, bat we even consider i race to be seen listening to th an Catholic ps
Ganton are under a very strict military of this. x the Tartar troops in Papers hare not Heard
regime, and if any one among them be found guilty of making a disturbance he is at once degraded and expelled from Banner. As to those who are well behaved, even allowed to go about to while those who are doing regular garrison duty are not allowed to absent themselves oven for a day. How then can it happen that a few hundred men could secretly leave for Annam without its being found out at once by the properly constituted authority Some ti foreign and the men composing this extra regiment were raised from amongst those who were not doing regular garrison duti By this procedure the whole remai available Tartars were absorbed in the new regiment. Can it then be possible for a few hundred more to have gone over to the enemy (French)? Those papers also say that "when the French attacked Son-tai the Black Flags captured fifteen Bannermen, and, having out off these prisoners' hands, sent them to Canton where they arrived on the 19th of the 11th moon" (December 8th). Wo learn from the foreign papers that the French troops only commenced to attack Sontai on or about the 15th of December. Now Aunam is distant overland from Canton a matter of some thousand Ni, and it must accordingly take a month or'so to accomplish that distance. At that time, also, the French had declared a state of siege in all the Tonquin ports, so that even if a steamer had brought the it is not probable that it could have 0 in two or three days. The French
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.