And now a further rumour reaches _us of the murder of two French priests in Honan. Further information will be awaited with great interest. Hitherto only reports of ice ful conditions and of great respect ing shown to the foreigners have reached us, and these coming in the main from missionaries and other foreigners, not a few of whom have gone into that province within the last few months, makes this report appear the more startling. One can but feel that there must have been a special cause—possibly inspired from without. But we can only await further information. Tales of unsettled conditions in Shansi are also floating about, and although other information seems to discredit them to an extent, yet the fact that such stories are continually in the air and increasing in number, indicates an unsettled, and perhaps one may say, an expectant state of mind, which it is not pleasant to contemplate.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.