Much has been written about the doing: of the Boxers" or Yihu Oh'uan in Shai tung province, but a letter received lately by a Tientsin merchant here Crom his family in the district city of Hsin -h prefeeture of Paoting, the provincial capital of Chihli, which we have been allowed to slate, while both amusing and inzerestwill show how these rutilous in Chibli for themselves. ers in Chihli_ who were in-tinted last year ky emissaries sent h Parent Society in Shantun; ade their headquarters here in our 4 some 800 of them are now inlet only a few long as these men Were occupied in organising them. selves, seeking recruits, and collecting vers. tly had no time to make sword d firearms—mainly revol any disturbances on a large scale, it seemed bright magistrate merely closed his eyes and ears and ignored their existence, He apparently trusted to his lucky star that the Boxers would not se any riots against the Christian ¥i his juris-di whereby he woul trouble and censure from the Viceroy at Tientsin, Unfortunately this magistrate's: star was anything but lucky for him, for no sooner had these Boxers got everything ready for taking the field than they "began to menace the safety of several Christian hamlets near by, which had long expected trouble and had repeatedly notified their dangerous condition to the district magistrate whose name, by the way, is Sich, but in vain, At last when matters culti decided attempt to storm a Christian village, the district magistrate wax compelled to appeal to Tientsin for help. This news getting to the ears of the leaders of the Boxers, " strong party of them visited the magistrates yamen and demanded his apology and als" funds and supplies in aid of the holy cause.
Although it appeared that the masistrate had been notified of the proposed and had collected by his side several petty military offices "who commanded patrols in the neighbourhood nf Hsinch'ény and had about 100 of their soldiers, besides runners and thief-takers, wiily cowed by the threatens ing aspect. of the Boxer leaders and their 50 well-a. And though the military officers, despising the small numbers of the Boxers, were indignant at the cowardice of the magistrate and wished to arrest the daring enemy, the magistrate would not allow it and tried to parley with them. One of the condi ferred by granted their demand fors:
Boxers should guarantee t ch'éng district free from all Tit other words, so long as Hsineh'éng and its dependencies were left in peace the Boxers could work their will on the Christians of other districts for aught our Magistrate cared. But the Boxer leaders evidently had their eyes on certain well-off Christians in their neighbourhood and emphatically refused to yield to the magistrate's demand.
"In the meantime the Boxers in the yamen were being gradually and quietly forced by men from their village en-ampment until at last there were some 400 of them well-equipped and armed in front of the yamen, Finding themselves now strong enough for every eventuality the leaders at once made it plain to the magistrate that, if he was so ill-advised supplies, they would help thomaelves as to decline to give them funds and
only by' plundering his Honour and his yamen but also every shop and revidenee in the city worth sacking.
"On bei exe terms the magistrate looked at his military officers and the officers looked at him, for by this time, ug how matters stood, those valiant military officers were of one-tenth as anxious to arrest the Boxer leaders as they had been an hour ago, Finally, there being no help for it," as the magistrate puts it, the magistrate ordered a thousand bags of rice to be handed out of the city granary to the Boxers and a package of silver, as drink money' to the leaders. The later then asked how much silver the package contained and were told 50.' In a most matter-of-fact way the Chief of the Boxers called for a balance from the yamen account.nt's room, which being brought, revealed the fact that there was only Tls. 49.30 in the package! With a curse the Chief threw the opened package into the room where the parley was being held, and the broken pieces of silver rolled over the whole place, some of which getting to the line of Boxers in the rear of the jets were, of course, surreptitiously snatched up. 'The magistrate turned pale and ao did the military officers. 'What would you have then, my brave hero! (chang "shik)! was the quavering question of the magistrate.—' Your life, if you are not careful!' was the fierce and menacing reply of the Chief Boxer. 'Tf you thought that the drink money we bestowed upon you was insufficient, why didn't you say so, instead of throwing the money away in & manner so insulting to the generous henrt of his Honour? Name your requirements,' said one of the military officers braver than the rest, 'Four hundred taels and not a candareen less,' was reply. But," said the magistrate, there such a sum in the whole yamen. How can T give what I have not?' "Then you will have to come with us and take the risk,' replied the Chief, at the same beckoning to one of his companions to bring up the rest of the Boxers into the room.
"The magistrate groaned; then signing, to his secretary, the man went to an inner roomn and brought wut without more ado seven packages of silver which were laid on the table which stood between the officials and the Boxer lenders. 'How much is that?" asked the Chief—' Tis, 350, which, with the money on the floor will make up the amount you demand,' was the reply. 'Bring out another package while you are about it, T intend the money on the floor as drink money, as you call it, for my men.' No sooner had these words been spoken by the Chief than there was a rush and a scramble, ant in an instant all the silver lying on' the floor was snatched up by the Boxers who had followed tha'r leaders into the room. The latter then sarcastically bent one knee to the magistrate and grinned their thanks for his Honour's generosity.'
'The Chief then methodically weighed the liver ina provokingly slow manner, compelling the magistrate to make yood the loss of weight in every package supposed to contain fifty taels of good silver,' after which with another sarcastic bend of one knee the Borers slowly filed out of the room into the great courtyard, where they were joined by the bulk of their men, and so on out of the city into the county. As an instance of the contempt in which these Boxers hold the officials and troops, when they came out of the yamen they made no attempt to provide against attack or surprise en route, but joked and laughed with the people who lined the streets Tlending to the city-gate. In contrast to this, sassoon as the magistrate found that the Boxers had completely left the city, he ordered the gates to be closed at once,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.