Yrs province of Hunan is so much before the world at the present moment, that Dr. Griffith John has reprinted in the August number of the Chinese Recorder a brief account of a visit of four weeks' duration which he made to that province in the spring of 1883, in company with Mr. Archibald of the National Bible Society of Scotland. The account appeared originally in the Christian World: it has been suggested that it would be intere: to reprint it in full in our columns; but it is accessible in the Chinese Recorder, on the one hand; and on the other, it naturally strongly resembles the account of a six weeks" trip in the province which we lately published. Dr. John begins with the hope that his account will widen his readers' "view of the obstacles which the missionary has to contend with in his attempt to plant the 'I'ree of Life in such a soil as this is, and help, it may be, to call forth a deeper and more intelligent sympathy with him in his efforts to accomplish his gigantic task." This will doubtless be the effect on readers who are interested in.the Christianisation of China; while those who are as indifferent to this as Gallio himself, will feel sad that so fine a province, with a common people perfectly ready to receive foreigners kindly when not excited by the officials and literati and gentry, should remain so savagely closed to the Leueficent influences of western civilisation.
Hunan, says Dr. John, is a noble province. It abounds in agricultural productions and mineral resources. Its people are comparatively brave, manly, and straightforward. They have more character than the people of Hupeh. "Hupeh men," say the Hunanese, "are made of bean curd, but Hunan men are made of iron." They are a little apt to be boastful, too, for it must not be forgotten that Hunan was overrun by the Taipings, though the Hunanese atrugate to themselves the credit of ultimately crushing the Taiping rebellion, Hiwan is a nursery of high offi cials, and it contains "a host of red buttons among the retired officers, many of whom are men of great influence, on account of their past services to the State, as well as by reason of their high official rank." With this belief in their province and themselves the Hunanese of the upper classes are "proud, exclusive, and anti-foreign to a de; that is extraordinary even in China. Their hatred to the foreign barbarian is @ provincial characteristic. The gentry and scholars of the province Jock upon Hunan as the palladium of the empire, and the ultimate expulsion of the hated barbarian is a fixed article in their creed. It is a real grievance to them to see the foreigner showing his impish head' within their precincts; and it is their fixed policy to so embitter his experiences when he does so, as to make a second visit impossible." Dr. John goes on to repeat that the people are peaceable and harmless—as is almost everywhere the case in China—save when moved by their superiors. He gives some specimens of the placards which the literati, with the connivance of the officials, put up whenever the visit of a foreigner ix expected. Que of them brought from Changteh opens thus: "'The English rebels have their vile abode on the margin of the sea. Their ruler may be either man or woman. As to their species, they are half men half beasts. In the Book of the Hills they are called Lo chung (waked vermin), and in the language of China Séih jen (mud-tish)." The Christian religion is vilified in the coarse st way, and: it is suggested that a band of men should be engaged to waylay the foreigners, and so maltreat them that they will never come back to Hunan. "A large number of men, in whom both skill and courage are combined, should be secretly engaged; and having been liberally supplied with travelling expenses, they must be sent to patrol the water courses and highways; should they come across a foreign devil, they must act as may be most expedient in the circumstances, and rob him of his money, or strip him of his clothes, or deprive him of food, or cut off his ears and nose." 'I'he Hunanese must have good deal of the braggart in them, for these dreadful things have never been dove to a foreigner yet. Perhaps men in whom skill and courage are combined, and who will risk meeting a foreign devil in a lonely place, are scarce even in Hunan; perhaps it is found easier to suggest that they should be liberally supplied with travelling expenses, than to find the funds, for even the literati and gentry are thrifty in China; per hay when the bravo does come across the foreign devil he finds it "anost expedient in the circumstances" to get quickly out of his way, and let him go on in peace; the fact remains that there is certainly no country in Asia in which murderous assaults on foreigners, except by large mobs where the responsibility being distributed over numbers seems to fall lightly on individuals, are more rare than they are in China. The Chinaman loves to shout Sha! (kill) or T+! (beat), and to throw a stone if he is not likely to be caught throwing it; but he wants somebody else to do the killing and the beating, and the men who write these placards would never put their suggestions into action themselves. We have already told the story of how Dr. John and Mr. Archibald discovered that it was the constables themselves, who had been placarding the streets and inciting the mob at Lungyang. "In his concluding paragraph Dr. John says:—' The Lungyang case throws no obscure light on the way most of the rows with which foreigners in travelling in China have to do, are got up. The people, by means of placards are inflamed, an assault is made, the foreigner has to ran and the news of a righteous uprising and a glorious victory is noised abroad, The placards are always issued by the gentry and scholars, with the full cognisance of the magistrates, and simply fathered on the people. In the magistrate of Lungyaug, and the two scholars we met at his office, we had unquestionably the very authors of the placard issued on that day; and the very spirit of the storm which threatened our destruction must have come forth from the office itself." And the best of it is that the officials, when found out, are not a bit ashamed of what they have done, but treat it as an excellent joke. When the missionaries complained of their reception at Lungyang, the magistrate and the two scholars begged them not to be offended, as it was not intended for them, but for a Roman Catholic priest whose visit had been expected. More as to this official responsibility for outrages on foreigners will be found in the papers by "F,," of which we publish the first to-day. The objections to foreigners being official and not popular, it will not be so difficult to suppress these objections, if our home governments are firm in making the central government understand that they must be suppressed, for the gentry and literati are careful of their skins, and never fight except vicariously.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.