By tue Vex. tue Ancnpracox A. E. Monte, 0.0.
(Continued.)
Probably never in her best stretches of history has China as one nation and under one ruler been 0 near to manent disintegration as when we arrived in 1861, A comet was blazing in the sky. I think it was Doneti's. Law this comet finely ax we rounded the Cape on our way © sailing ship. It was blowing heavily; but the clouds were breaking when the first tate called me on deck at 4 a.m. and there through a broad rift in the! clouds sailed into view this great comet. 'The Chinese connected the portent with the frightful terrors of their own twenty years' rebellion, devastating as it did thirteen out of the eighteen provinces, and destroying twenty million lives. The rebellion had almost secured complete success at that time, holding Nanking for ten years; advancing to within 2 100 miles of Peking—then checked, and sullenly retiring, with "last up flare jing of military prowess and daring, the T'aipings dashed on Ningpo, reached the sea, hoping to secure foreign trade and friendship, and arms, and then they lost their heads, and their manners, and their power, and by 1863-4 all was over.
But that rebellion left the Imperial power so shattered, and China so con-valsed, that it seemed almost " matter of pablic and world-sanctioned necessity and charity, to divide China into its three great' parts—North, Middle and Sonth—to be ruled and pacified and civilised by Russia, England, and France, the three Powers which alone then had real interest snd influence in China. And this tripartite division The H.-C. herald and S. C. & C. Gasette. very nearly indeed took effect. Yet notice one more memory of the past which makes the history of China so unique and pathetic. Things are very different now. China is trying hard to follow Japan's lead, to be really and not in name alone independent of foreign countries, and to win this position, she desires to educate herself into line with Western Powers, and universities and schools, and railways and electric appliances of all kinds are sanctioned and promoted. But this is worth noticing. There is little really new in this world of ours. The present programme of the sober reform party was precisely the programme of the T'aipings fifty years ago. The country opened for trade, friendship and mutual commercial intercourse with Western lands, courtesy instead of opprobrious abuse, schools also everywhere, with Western methods, the ible' taught in schools, insurance companies, railways, telegraphs, steam traffic on the inland waters; and the opium trade and the use of the drug both doomed in the T'aiping's programme, as they are doomed to death now we trust by England and China acting in concert. The changes are now however real and, we trust, lasting, though the collapse of the 'T'aipings sod the long burying of their programme make me doubt sometimes China's stability.
I cannot venture to recall and narrate all my very chequered merah ones of the past forty-seven years. T have related many of them elsewhere, and in different forms. I select one only, which is of interest us illustrating one Chinese characteristic, the fi tion which rumour and rales e: over the people, and the epidemics of panic and violence which from time to time follow these ramours.
It will be interesting to notice how far broader education and the light of some scientific knowledge will shame away and dissipate this foolish acceptance of lying taler. I have witnessed myself the genesis, and growth, and career of three or four of these rumours—the operation of the mischievous influence, and the cessation of the truculent talk coming as abruptly and rapidly on as the origination and outburst. We were in very real danger more thea once from the terror and anger'of the people as to that which had some ground in real outrage, namely the kidnapping affairs, "bag gagging," rumour. Swift sailing lorchas were said to be coming outside Chindei at the mouth of the Ningpo river, engaged in the coolie traffic. These vessels sent boats up the river with strong crews, and in the dusk they watched for men passing along the bank into the country; they jumped ashore, clapped a rice sack over the man's besd, pinioned him, and took him and other proxies out to sea for transport as slave-coolies to " foreign ports." Ningpo was violently agitated by this rumour about the year 1866. Tt was one of the aftermaths of the 'T'siping disorders. Emergency committees met with closed doors at the Consalate. The naval officers and the Consul called at my house in the NE
315 city to summon me to such a meeting and request me to have s fast express boat ready day and night with extra boatmen to take news to Hangchow should the panic increase, and threatened violence necessitate the withdrawal of inland missionaries, I was warned one day when in my study that a violent placard was posted the street near my house and was exciting crowd who stood reading it. I went out with " Chinese friend to see what was happening. The placard stated with some minuteness the capture of a man by these kidnappers, his escape half dead, and further that he was lying ill in a house not far off. We took down the placard, telling the crowd that it would be shown to their magistrates and to the Consul and I assured them of proper punishment for the kidnappers if it was trae, and for the falsehood mongerers if the placard was false, "Come with us, we said, "Let ux go and call on this poor sufferer." The crowd followed me eagerly. We found the house. "Is so and so here, escaped from his captives?" He was here," was the reply, "but he hus moved to a house near the South Gate." " We will go thither also," I said to the crowd, and off we moved again. We knocked at the door. "Is so and so here, escaped from his captives 2" " He was here," was the reply but he has moved turned to th go on? do you They burst out laughing, dispersed with half shame, half merrie nivnt, But the danger was real, and the outrages real also in other cases.
Ten years later than this came as slowly moving wave of mingled that Chinese pigtails, their long gracefal queues, were cut off and disappeared. by unseen hands, with no jerk, or sound, oF shock, and that those thus disfigured would die in three days or farthest three hundred days—a tantalizing terror indeed. The paper men's story was that the figures of men and animals cut out in paper were thrown into the air by some magicians orby somedemoniacal art, and descended heavy as_lend to crush to death the victims of this malice. The beating of incessant gongs and the holding up of umbrellas day and night, might drive away or check the evil; and in Hangchow, where I was thea living, every gong and every umbrella were bought up in no time. I witnessed the arrival, and the sway, and mischief of these rumours. In the busy town of Dongsi, near Hangchow, two men, one 'a Buddhist priest, one I fear " Roman Catholic Christian, were burnt alive by the maddened people, on suspicion merely of being concerned in this mischief. I heard of the arrival of the story and the outbursts of panic and as they affirmed the fall of one of these " paper weights " in the northern suburb one Saturday afternoon, after tracing its approach from the far north for some time past. The
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.