28th Aug.
TuERE is a good deal more in the plot recently brought to light by E. Chang Chih-tung at Hankow than appears on the surface: but. the first thing we should like to know is, on which side was the plot? The thirty men or so captured and executed by the Viceroy—who, as one of our correspondents writes, is a man of his word, and having said he will prevent outbreaks does it—were reformers, followers of Kang Yé-wei, and members of the China Independence Association, a synopsis of whose aims has been published over their signature. Their main objects are three—to replace the Emperor Kuang Hsé on the throne; to fully protect all foreign and Christian lives and property pand to establish a civilised government in China. It is obvious that to accuse them of an intention to burn down Hankow and organise an anti-foreign revolt is preposterous; and we trust that when the scare has passed away, the British Consul at Hankow will give alittle time to enquiring into the matter and will find out among other things, who first put Chang Chih-tung on the scent of this shadowy conspiracy, and what was the real motive of the Viceroy's severity. It is quite certain that these thirty Reformers, feather-brained as Chinese officials of the old type may consider them to be, are not fools enough to think they could start a revolution at Hankow with one old muzzle-loading gun apiece, and tivo gross of policemen's whistles. A large number of them are Chang Chih-
Japan to be educated when he was tung's own pails, whom he sent to full of reform himself, and they apently have been weak enough to believe that the Viceroy was in earnest when he wrote his recent proreform treatise, which has been translated more than once and received with so much satisfaction by those who hoped that foreign civilisation had made a permanent impression on the distinguished author.
The statement of the real Reformers is, that these men who have been
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.