20th July.
A WELL-INFORMED correspondent. who signs himself "An Ansions Student of the Situation," and who lived for many years in the vinees which have' come especially under the direct rays of the throne since the flight from Peking last August, writes us a somewhat alarmist letter with reference to the Lienchuang Hui, or Ailied Vitlages' Organisation, who: anil progress are ca in Chihli. In the ent from their posts of the correspondents on whom we formerly relied, and never in vain, for information on what was going on in that part of China, we cannot definitely state how far our correspondent's appre-pensions are justified, but the events of last year show that they should:}not be "negleeced, as the wan ings sent by the missionaries at that time were. Our correspondent begins by saying that the oldest native Christian on the Yangtze, at a last interview before he died last year, uttered the ominous warning: "The bad time has not yet come." This was spoken while news of the barbarities practised on innocent men, women, and children, in Shansi and elsewhere was reaching Shanghai. The speaker meant that the Boxer organisation outburst which some writers claim it to have been, was really the enrolling, equipping, and paying by certain officials of the roughs and scoundrels of each locality, that they might attack foreign compounds while imperial troops formed cordons to prevent the escape of the ium: to be surpassed by: something more sweeping and thorough. It will po haps be remembered that a correspondent at Nanking wrote us not long ago that the son of one of the highest officials in China had significantly remarked to him: " We have not done with foreigners yet."
The Lienchuang Hui isthe compulsory tnrolinent of one member of each family, on pain of the whole family being treated as friendly to foreigners when the awful time fi action arrives. Che mi itary graduates scattered about. the country have been appointed to organise this new force, while the Boxers were organised by the gentry, land-owners, and merchants, mostly under protest and half-heartedly. The villages in. the wedge of Honan that lies between and Chihli were thus ciated last: year, and there the perse-caution of Christians raged mos fiercely. In Shansi seventy village west of Pingyangfu were thus coerced by four military graduates, and escape bee "ne p impossible. ally Apparently toallay the and whet, the zeal of the promote: of the new movement, the Honan Boxers have been secretly informed that they will not be punished fur last year's outrages. Tt is the Lienchinang Hui that buoys up the hopes of the "Tris of Tigers at Hsianfi, and persuades them that the next attempt will not fil, and that nob one foreigner friendly native will eseaps to tell the We. And the Allies set out to Peking with the determination to make a recurrence of last year's outrages impossible.
Another determination was exact adequate punishment for the authors of last year's outrages. The Allied troops "are rapidly" leaving China, andthe chief conspirators, the Empress Dowager, the restirrected eunuch Li Lien-ying, Prince Tuan, Yung In and his henchman Tung Fu-hsiang, are all unscathed, while there is no certainty that Kang Yi and Yi Hsien are not still alive.
A few subordinate leaders and tools have been thrown to the lions, and the rest who have been named are reserved for the time when they will be given a chance to vie with Yi Hsien and Li Ping-hong in a thrilling revenge for being interfered with dnomina'ly disgraced. Tt was a mistake to they could be rendered harm immediate execution or foreign police supervision. To hand in a list of names unless the foreign troops were to remain in the country until the men proscribed were banded over, was to give them warning to escape. The recently reported official request that search might be made in Shanghai for runaway Shansi officials shows how the Chinese authorities think they can safely play on foreign
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.