The Blue Books of China held Christian-its responsible for not a few things with wi ich it has nething todo. Mahometanism and various secret and proscribed sedts are referred to this -vource, and some of the the terminology which the Taipings ich the Taipingy used in common with Christians is quoted, and various absurd practices attributed to the Taipings are connected by the writer with similar practices said to prevail am¢ {the Roman Catholics. In 1842 or 1 after the treaties with Foreign Powers had been concluded, trouble arose in some parts of the country about the disturbing Of graves. Coffins of newly buried persons, it is said, were being opened and the brains of the dead were being taken away. Theofficals putoutproclamations treating it as the work of the Tsing Lien secret society though there was no proof that it was so. After three years case occurred in the province of Chekiang which caused great excitement. A child was taken ill suddenly and lied. In a short time a considerable number of other children in the neighbourhood died in the same way, but no one knew the cause of death. One day, by chance, the father of one of the children happened to notice that his child's grave had been disturbed. He examined it and found that the child's skull had been opened with a hatchet. On investigation it turned out that all the other children had been treated in the same way. Children at play were now inveigled by passers-by into eating things that contained poison. Their brains were taken out too. But the perpetrators of these crimes could not be discovered. It_was evidently some devilry connected with strange sects. "In my opinion," writes the editors of the Blue ks in his comments at the end of the chapter on the gradual demoralization of China—* the depraved sects in. making charms and mediums use certain parts of the human body and mix them with brains.
They begin by taking what they want from the dead, but if that does not do, they take it from the living; therefore they stupify ren and mutilate them while the fe is still in their bodies." A little later he goes on to say, "Of the foreign missionaries who have come to China since the repeal of the regulations prohibiting Christianity, the greater part are Frenchmen. Of late years the rumours of their taking out the brains of infants and mutilating girls have been scattered abroad, for in addition to building churches they have now opened orphanages." his comments appended to the a on the expulsion of Christianity from Kiangsi and Hunan, he repeats these rumours and enlarges upon, them in disgusting detail, and though he is careful to say that there is no evidence that they are true, but implies that he rds them as false, yet he shows in spite of what he says about their improbability, that he is thoroughly suspicious of the motives of the Roman Catholics in taking so many female children under their charge.
'The sequel to the story which I translated in my last paper shows how the try and officials are willing to fan the me' of popular superstition in regard to the taking out of eyes and the murder of children, and with a few explanatory remarks, I will now give the sequel, continuing the translation of the chapter on the Kiangsi nota, The second Roman Catholic Church in Nanchang Fu having
day of the 2nd month of the first year been destroyed by the mob on the 16th of the Emperor Tungehi with the practical connivance of Shen Pao-cheng the Governor, the gentry and literati began to fear that they had rather overstep the line of what was expedient, in exciting the people to the extent they had done. Tt was undeniable that the whole riot was dud tothe placards that they had issued, "Buf When they heard that the Governor in his revert of the riot had not implicated either them of the local man-was the Hanlin His Ting-kil that bones wrapped up in a parcel, and a copper tube, and some ointment mixed with blood, and carry them to the Governor and tell him that the bones had been dug up in the courtyard of the Roman Catholic Church, that the tube was used for taking out eyes, and that the ointment compounded with. blood was a mixture of children's brains and something else (ji). The Governor received their statement with good deal of incredulity, but he de-uted the prefect of Nanchang and the istrict magistrates to hold an inquest and to steam the bones (a Chinese practice which is said to show whether there are any cracks or bruises on bones, which might have been produced by violence). The bones, of which there were " good many, showed no signs of having been injured. The copper tube and the ointment had a foreign look about them, but there was nothing to show what they had been used for. The magistrates nude their report accordingly on each article. They said that although the gentry had no certain evidence in support of their case, yet (oslo re the matter was officially brought they themselves (the Magistrates) "had
fore them] heard rumours about it.. The bones they had examined und the case was perfectly clear, but they thought it would not be advisable to talk of anything save the copper tube and the ointment, These were evidently things used by foreigners, but there was nothing by which they could discern their origin. If the discovery got abroad among the people they, feared it would create general consternation. -Certainly there must be someacconnt to be given of these articles, it was therefore their duty to return them to their superior, requesting that the whole case might be sent on to the Tsungli Yanén, in order that the French Minister might' be interrogated ' about it, and that on the receipt of a reply from the Tsungli Yamen the minds of the gentry and the people of Kiangsi might be reassured and Yat feelings of good-will might be established between the Chinese and the foreigner. The Governor accordingly notified the Tsungli Yamen and asked for instructions. But there the matter was allowed to sleep."
Here we see the gentry and the mandarins acting a play before the people; Tt is trae it was after all the mischief had been done, and the object of the farce was not to stir a mob up immediately to any fresh act of violence, but only to intensify the hatred of the people to the foreigner and to make it more impossible than ever for him to return. Have we not seen duritig the recent riots the same thing being done over again? The newspapers have reported cases mandarins taking up the ¢ made by the people against the Roman Catholics and seriously investigating them to sev whether or not there was any trath in the rumour that in such and such a place bones, etc., ete., had been found on Orphanage premises where a riot had been transacted. The officials may themselves in some instances have been inclined to believe these stories, but it is reasonable to ssu that in many more cases they have simply used the superstitions of the people in the same way that the gentry and magistrates at Nanchang-fu used them in 1862, viz, as a lever to set in operation the brute force of the rabble or as a means for keeping alive their anti-foreign feelings. The iny ion left by the Chinese narrative I have translated above is quite clear; the whole case was trumped up, and the mandarins saw through it perfectly but spoke in their report in mysterious way about the bones, and recommended referring the case to Peking, either out of fear of offending the gentry oF because they were themselves in thorough sympathy with the The monstrosities connected with Orphanages have come to be a perfect nightmare with the Chinese people. I have before
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.