have to-day seen a sad and pitiful sight which I wish I could bring home to some of those benighted statesmen who will fatuously insist on regarding and treating this nation of China as a civilised or even semi-civilised people. What I saw—and the horror of it will remain with me for many along day—was all that was left of what but little more than a month ago was a fine, enthusiastic, young Roman Catholic priest who came out some eighteen months ago to bring light and religion to a people who have done him to death in a manner that could not be surpassed by the wildest African savage. Father Victoria was a Belgian, not quite twenty-nine years of age, and was appointed by his Bishop some two months ago to a Roman Catholic station at Shihkushan, in the Patung. district, about 100 miles from here, For some time past there has been feeling of enmity against the Catholics smouldering among the evilly disposed, and this at last came toa head in an attack on the Catholic converts at Shihkushan. Father Victorin at first made his escape, Dub was so unfortunate as to be caught by a roving band of the rioters who after beating him cruelly and stripping him almost a ig tied him on a board er brought him in triumph back to his former home, where a largo band of rioters was assembled whose evil passions had been stirred up by the burning-out and slaughtering of converts in which they had been indulging.
ight of his late home they tied the poor Kraw a veil over the rest of this ghastly nest up to a tree, and here I would gladly acone, but that I feel that the world should know of what the Chinese in their hour of triumph over a defenceless foreigner are fe, and I would warn li read ore lined to be squeamish to read no further, or to skip the next few lines, Aa this poor man hung from the tree to which he was tied, pieces were cut from his thighs and eaten by his tormentors. From the state of his poor body fire was evidently applied to it, and slugs were fred into non-vital parts, Finally his body was cut open from the chest to the bottom of the shdomen, he was disembowelled, and the various were taken out and eaten by these semi-civilised people, who at the time drank his blood. He was also mutilated in a way that cannot be des cribed, and his head cut off; there being a hole in the top of the skull large enough to put one's fist in. The head—which I may ote. easily recognisable, bearing, the add is entirely cleaned out of the brain,
small brown moustache which ho wor, One eye was evidently gouged out. 7 Now first, as to how these patticulr ars are known. The poor remains tell t? air own tale to begin with, and I have sorrow, the state of things that ven, to my would mani festly result from such treat "ment as I have described. In addition this, details are gradually leaking out through native eyewitnesses, who are nected with the not in any way con-mission and have absolurely nothing to 43) gain by exaggeration. Secondly, as to pndlys as.° the exposing to view here of the remaiv'4, which, after determined and er sister t demands for their recovery, were the brought in by the officials much as {he so of a workhouse pauper would be treated. To expose the remains ina native temple to the view, not only of foreigners, but of any Chinese who chose to come in and look, struck most of us at first_as not only bad taste on the part of the Mission, "which it'rasponsible for this procedure, but estionable policy, seeing that every vho came to look would probably regard it as evidence of his countrymen's triumph over the foreign devil." But looking at it from all possible points of view, which must include the Chinese, one is inclined to think that the mission took a ise course. In the first place, they firmly refused to have the remains brought inside their compound, and here they were unquestionably right. The body once inside the Mission walls, the Chinese officials would in all probability have at once declared to the Viceroy and to the world that it bore no signs of mutilation, and would have promulgated or encouraged the belief that any such signs must be the result of the Fathers' machinations in order to make their tale good, Equally, the only way to bring home to the' Chinese world the outrage that had been committed was to insist, as the Fathers wisely did, on the body being—reverently and decently, of courss—exposed to view it, prominent local temple such as it nov, 41 in, with native official employees boo watch always with the priests, ye enti can never be anid that the" pray was tampered with by either si"ye AH hie though repulsive to a culti- sated European mind, is quite correct fire a Chines point of view. The closed in a fitting oofin, which is sealed with the seals of P oth district officials and the Mission, vending the settlement of OF. of Chinn that this is SPrecial case. such as is not likely to elsewhere. Large foreign com-are, of course, safe, the native mobs utterly cowardly, but in the case of stall communities and isolated foreigners, such a tragedy as the above may be enacted atony time, Itis idle for optimist admirers of the Chinese to close their eyes to everything that is going on around them and murmur: "Oh, quite impossible!" The writer who has known these people for some years, makes bold to say that in every town in China, there are always plenty of savage ruffians prepared to carry out such fiendish atrocities as above described, at any momen t they may. get the chance, and with suc', people, as with all Asiatics, there is ¢mly one method, and that is, a show of force and of the deter. mination to use i', at a moment's notice, if necessary.
It is scarcely needed surely to add, conclusion, that apart from our common the above effects is noteworthy es in their fiendish passion do not say: Slay this or that countryman, or this or that religionist," but simply "Sha (or 2a) yor g.jén"—Slay the foreigner!"
Bist Jor jury.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.