Tite high Chinese offic Is thronghout the Empire have she ud sharp meth ids of dealing with secret sociees, and suppress any meetings members ur attempts at organisation of any kind with a time and ruthless hand, when it nits their purpose. Asa rule there is no wavering or untainty in this respect, and as the Empire honeycombed with secret of various denominations, the Provi Aathoriti re ever on the alert t9 suppress them, a short shrift being given to those who are action the h for the purpose of obtaining ther id to drive foreigners out of China.
wild scheme that failed, of cause, but which brought untold misery on th in which both foreigners and natives were sufferers. failed to grasp the danger of the Boser risings in Chihli and Shantung, and how they neglected the warnings of missionaries living in the county ud of the Press, until the outoresk of 1900 rudely awoke them from their fancied security. At first the Boxers were confined to Chihli aul Shantung, and it was only when they found that encouragement from the officials gave them temporary success that branches of their organisation spread into the neighbouring provines, Then came the war, andi the collapse of the reactionaries and their miserable allies the Boxers, so far as the northern provinces were concern. ed. But when the Court fled from Peking in August 1900, hordes of Boxers accompanied them into Shensi, and thence some of them found their way southwards into Szechuan. As they could no longer secure the countenance of the Empress Dowager and her advisers and dreaded the ven-glance of the foreigners, the Boxer leaders kept quiet during 1901, and it was only at the commencement of this year that they became bolder and began once more to openly practise their incantations and gymnastic jugglery Uutortunately for the peace of Szechuan and the security of ths foreigners living in the province, the Manchu Viceroy Kéxei Chun, though professedly friendly yo foreigners, was careless and apathetic in the extreme, and took no steps at all to pnt down the mummery of the Boxers, who further found a friend in the Provincial Treasurer Yuan Feng-lin and gaining courage by the tacit connivance of the officials, the Boxers not only practised their incantations and gymnastics openly and boldly, but eventually became aggressive and bloodthirsty, with the result that it was not long before trouble brok out, The district magistrate of Tze yang was an official who did approve of the Boxers and their methods, and he would not allow them scope for mischief in his sis ict. An attack was made yamen which failed, and subsequently a more serious attack was made on the city of Tzeyang, in which the Boxers were again unsuccessful, and had the district magistrate been properly upheld and supported by his superiors the Boxers would there and then have been suppressed and exterminated, Bat the apathy, or eriminil nogi-c* of the Viceroy and other—high officials, "ud the wretchedly inet cit and half-hearted atvemp's that had been officially made to. disperse the Boxers, led tua more serious outcome, as in June they buldly and mer cilessly attacked a Methodist Episcopal chapel at Tienkuch'iao, which was situated in the country far from all possible aid that could be gruilgingly afforded by Imperial troops. and having the fullest opportunity
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.