What at first appeared to be only a trivial affair began to assume a more serious aspect; and when on the following day Mr.* Chung was conveyed to)
jen tsin in a special car, with a strong military escort, it was evident that the supposed they had in their 8 personage of very annstal importance. The four friends were de few days in the Paotingia police quarters and then, nothing being found against them, they were released. The chief prisoner wax taken to the special residence for visiting officials in Pientsiu, and there detained under a strong guard for the next five weeks, while undergoing the tedious and trying ordeal of a Chinese judicial examination, He was not pnt in irons, nor was he actually subjected to torture, bnt was really treated with what inst have appeared to his judges as unusual consideration, Assn preliminary step a strict search was made of his person to see that he had not the means of harming hin others. For three weeks he under the same roof with his judge, who gave him two or three heat ings a day, sometimes examining him for hours at a stretch. Besides this he was supplied with a companion, " man of the same literary rank, ostensibly to keep the time between examinations from hanging heavily on his hands, bat in reality to have a man with him night and day, to watch him and test him, in the hope that in some unguarded moment he would let out something that wond sive them an opening to xet out of him the information they hereafter. Oceasionally the procevstings were broken in upon is by suddenly verting the line of questions and taking the prisoner off his gnard, would try to. worm out of something. ineri~ mating. Those three weeks were ions intellectual tournament. and wrestling match, through which it would be impossible for any man to pass un-seathed, unless he had a straight story, consciousness of innocence, a clear head, and a stout heart. Every art of persuasion, threatening, promise, deception and argument which the human mind has invented, and of which the Chinese mind hax become such an acknowledged master, was employed, but to no. purpose.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.