When the proclamation was presented to the Magistrate by the missionaries in person, he justified it, saying that it was issued in accordance with the instructions of his superiors, and that as the malpractices referred to in the proclamation were known to exist in the church elsewhere, he thought that probably they might be found in this city too! When pressed for proof, and when shown how grave the charges' were, the magistrate became very uneasy, when in rushed one of his attendants to say that the proclamation was false, a forgery; he then said that he would issue a proclamation on the subject, but in the presence of his runners declared it would be impossible to discover the authors of the forgery. The promised proclamation added insult to injury, and, within a few days the case was made worse by the magistrate's runners arresting a woman who has been in the missionaries' employ for two years, and taking her in broad daylight to the yamen on a charge of adultery. Of course the effect of this was to increase ten-fold the virulence of the slanders, already bad enough. he arrest proved to the public that the missionaries were guilty of the foul offences chi inst them and showed that the magistrate, while disclaiming responsibility for the proclamation, yet sympathised with ite spirit.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.