(ruoxt ovR MANKOW CoRKESPONDENT.)
Mr. Liu is a highly respectable man of good education. He to the shop: Reoping class; is of possessing in appear an refined features, made all'U by a black moustache of unusually vigorous growth, He is 52 yours of age. His wife and only child, a daughter, are both dead. His story, told pretty much in his own words, is as follows "Tdo not belong to Sungpu myself, but through being often there, and friends, Tam well acq My home is at hundred houses 20 1) south of Sungpu—a pretty busy place with a market every morning—where T have ne shop. My nephew has a tobacou shop in Sungptt and Lhave been in the habit of zoing to help in it when they were speci Te happened that 1 was there this y the second month when T heard that there were two foreigners living in Mr. Fu just alongside our place, and their assistant, Mr. Yang, used often to come into the shop and talk with us. He invited me to euime and see the foreign teachers, and although Twas a little afraid at first, I went. They were living in a very poor room—there are no good inns in Sungpu. It was only about six feet wide and ten feet long, and open right up to the tiles. Originally there was no light in it, but they had bought a glass tile and put in the roof, which being low, enable them to attend to their affairs. They had no furniture, for the inn was poor, but atableand some stools. The foreign teachers were very kind'to me; they talked to me about doctrine, and gave me tea with their own hand. They seemed to like me, and I liked them, and went in often. One day Mr. Yang asked me if I could not help them. in getting a house to live in as their health was suffering through living in the inn. I said T was afraid, as no foreigner had ever taken a house in Sungpu before, but he showed me passports, and_ proclamations which Eread, and 1 was satisfied that accord ing to the will of the Emperor and the great officials it was all right. Had Tdreamed of all the trouble that was to spring out of it T would have returned to my home in Pantang, but the men were good men, and who could have thought of any one objecting? therefore said T would try what Ecould do. There were several people quite willing cither to let or to sell, Dut the most suitable place was over the river in the suburb of Hokiapu, Here friend of mine, Mr. Li, had rented a largo establishment from Mr. Ho in which he carried on the business of a geain dealer, but he had not been making much money, and as there was a back house of five rooms which he did not want he was anxious to sub-let it, As the ple suited the foreign Mr. Ho, wax quite agreeable, and dhe neigh teachers, and the owner of the property,
Hours all pleased, the thing was settled. We agreed to pay 21,000 cash a year as rent, with 7,000 cash paid down in advance. After the missionaries had settled down in this house they returned to Waching. They were no sooner gone than the rumers of the Macheng magistrate came and seized both the landlords and threw them into gaol; Li got 1,000 blows with the bamboo, and Ho 100 strokes on the hand, and they were told that the Hokiapu people must Arive the foreigners away, or they could not get out of prison again. Thad gone back to my medicine shop in Pantang when this news arrived, but I left it again at once and came down to Wuchang to see what could be done, The missionaries pub the matter into the hands of the Consul who communicated with the Taotai, and he sent a despatch about the case to the Macheng magistrate. In reply the Macheng magistrate said that Li and" Ho were two very wicked men who had been thrown into prison because of something with which the foreigners had nothing to do, and that they could not be set at liberty. The Consul tok the matter up again, and the two missi themselves to call N magistrate who received them very kindly, and set the landlords free. 1 at home looking after my medicine business when, inthe beginning of the fifth month, Freceived a request from the assistant Yatg to come and help the missionaries to attend to visitors for a short time as he had to go to Was chang. Just then there were great numbers of visitors coming all the time, some out of curiosity and some for medicine or the like, and all of them had to be enter-found all perfectly izhbous quite friendly, cards had been posted ABth of the month were coming to beat the fe 1 we supposed had been done in order to frighten us. Still, the teachers brought the matter to the notice of the Consul, as well as the local mand Macheng magistrate, and we were assured it would be attended to. This 18th of the fifth month was a day on which there was a great procession coming off. It was a time of general holiday, beginning on the 15th when there were lots of people about, but neither on that day, nor on the 16th, was there any trouble. On the 17th the procession came to Hokiapu escorted by thousands of people, and passed our,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.