England...... Dec, 25 Hankow...J San Francisco Yokohama Vientsin Foochow Hongkong... Jan, 30 Nagasaki
received in London on the 15th January.
Shanghai mail advices of 2th December were Was people at home read of ™ bia phemius and obscene" placards abusing and accusing foreigners in China, they fare able to form but-a very inadequate idea of the nature and extent of the obscenity and blasphemy.. Weare a good century ahead of these methods, and their very language is becoming strange to us, Yet for the real siguificance of the late. riots to be understood in England it is necessary that something more should be spoken there concerning these placards than vague condemnations of their impropriety. Feeling this: we ventured a few months ago to reprint and translate one of the mildest of them, in order that home readers should be able to form a more definite idea of the abuse which has been poured for the lash-year and more' and in America, and to all missionary upon their countrymen in China, It is (societies interested in China. with same object that the reproduction Phot its wide dissemination in Europe ofa whole series of these abominable will go far to correct its wider and cartoons to which we have already most mischievous dissemination in alluded, has just been made in Hankow, China, there can be no doubt; for the and a running translation added, with all people of Europe and America, and necessary notes, bya foreign resident there. particularly those sections of them who As the work was none of the pleasantest, ultimately dictate the policy of their so steeped in filth is the original letter-governments, cannot be shown too clearly the real barbarism which under-is name should not appear, lest some the translator has desired that lies the surface suavity of the Chinese. of the unreasoning condemnation which was laid upon the translator of the Death Blow to Corrupt Doctrines should fall upon him, Such condemnation,—"books of this kind are best left untranslated "-—is indeed unreasoning, for those in whose hands it really lies to remedy these abuses, our Government at home, could not otherwise come to appreciate them, while the readers to whom the abominations were originally addressed, the Chinese public, understand them well enough, and act upon them, I¢ is in this last particular that the real importance of these villainous 6 publications is found. Had the Changsha placards not been followed by the Wasueh murders we could have afforded to pass those placards by with contempt and loathing. Now we cannot; for, as Dr. John has shown in his later letters, no attempt has been made to punish the most prominent of the authors of this literature, Chou Han the titus lar Taotai, while the publishers who were arrested have got off with a moderate fine. This means of course that the government of Hunan is determined not to obey the Imperial Edict requiring the suppression of anti-foreign, auti-Christian placards, It could do so if it chose, for the authority of the Governor at Changsha is very great, supported as it is by troops, on whom he can rely, in all the other cities and towns of the province.
Such is the situation at the beginning of this new Chinese year. What course our own and other Christian Powers will pursue remains uncertain, but they cannot without loss of "face" allow themselves, haviog extorted a most favourable edict from Peking, to be flouted by Changsha. Meanwhile the book now before us should strengthen the hands of the foreign governments, for it cannot fail to increase, as it more than justifies, the indignation their subjects feel at these outrages upon
sacred. It is, we understand, being everything "that "Christendom holds sent ta the leading newspapers at home At the same time some adverse com-mont is to be expected. To the translation has been affixed, by another but not less able hand, an introduction and a "Review of the history of foreign intercourse with China," and as these are written principally from the standpoint of a missionary, they are not altogether free from a certain partiality, that prevents the writer from doing justice to both sides of the question before him. Take for instance, the so-called right of residence for missionaries in the interior. 'I'he writer gives a most naive reason why the British Government should accept the missionary view of this right.
"Tt might have been foreseen," he writes, "that Missionaries would insist on taking up their abode in the interior, and to leave their right to do so a dubious one could only work mischief." Now at the present moment it is of obvious consequence that foreigners should show a united front, and so we hesitate to comment on the bold position here assumed, The question of the "right" of inland residence was gradually settling itself, by the acquiescence of the local authorities in the purchase of Jand by missionaries wherever these latter had, by reasonable behaviour, shown that such purchase would create no disturbance. No better or more durable method could possibly be found, and we cannot see that our government was to be blamed for letting matters take this course, Even so, it is obvious that the residence of missionaries in the interior is attended with certain grave disadvantages. If they are attacked, outraged, murdered, in places inaccessible to our forces, weare placed in dilemma. We cannot promptly exact reparation, yet we feel that the spilling of English blood is an offence which it is altogether impossi-Me to pass by. The author of the "Review" would have us believe that missionary is actually safer in the interior than at an open port. "There sis no place," he sys, " where efficacious
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.