And so widespread is the talk and so serious, thatthe Taotai as well as the smaller officials have been compelled to deal with the agitation. Thut kidnapping is there can be no question. The mischief is that the wrong people are made responsible ime. The more sober among the population are inclined to blame a band of wandering Taoists, but the majority profess to believe in the guilt of the hated foreigner. Hence the present upset which is troublesome enough to require earnest attenti2 on the part of the mandarins. At Fuchou two meu have been executed fur circulating rumours against the foreigner; at Mutung the people themselves beat a man to death who was caught with a boy he was "taking to the foreign chapel," and similar treatment was meted to an individual in ngpeh who also had a child in his possession and who gave the same explanation of his movements, In connection with the agitation
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.