May 14, The letter we published last week from our Hankow correspondent gave us an interest ing glimpse into the organiza tion and methods of the famous Red Spears, a secret society, which is now terrorizing Honan province. We read that they are idolaters but neither Buddhists nor Taoists. There are Christians in their ranks for they compel each family, living in the districts in which they hold power, to contribute one man to their number, They do not object to the Christian retaining the distinctive characteristic of his faith; he need not worship the idol they have chosen to be their protector, but he must be true to the tenets of foreigner who ever did anything 80 idiotic. He imagined himself as the leader of a powerful party and wrote in his diary, decide to make myself king of China!" He had as much chance of becoming heft-at-law to the man in the moon as of attaining this ambition, He was the dupe of men a hundred times his superior in worldly wisdom and in the knowledge of ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, His punishment wa: ludicrously light for' the offence he had committed, but that was only because the court recognized that he tried to be a knave and only succeeded in being a fool. His boys, who were in the secret, were arrested by the Chinese authorities, tortured to extract confessions, and then trussed up and beheaded on the Public execution ground, The British Court regarded the attempt at rebellion as a mad escapade of no particular signify france but the Chinese Government knew that the plot was a serious one and, though Mason was merely a. cat's-paw, the society, into which he had allowed himself to be inveigled, was its bitter and relentless enemy. Whenever one of. its initiates fell into the clutches of their sect, From this we see that they are a political body and their religion is merely camoufage to give a colour of respectability to the society. Secret associations have existed in China since very ancient times. Whenever a dynasty was tottering to its fall there was one of these societies at hand and ready to give it a final push into the abyss. In the second contury of the Christian era the "Yellow Caps" assisted in the overthrow of the Han, one of most brilliant of' China's
chinese proudly calls himself a dynasties, To this day a son of Han, During the Manchu dynasty the Triad Society and the Kolaohui came into existence and spread very rapidly, Both resembled the "Red Spears" in that they were semi-religious, political, organizations. They were particularly prominent in the south,. and extended their influence to the Striits Settlements, California and Australia, Their contributions financed Dr.
Sun's propaganda which eulminated in the overthrow of the Manchus and the establishment of the Republic. To this day large contributions come from these sources to the Kuomintang. They affiliated them-welves with the Taipings and have been in the forefront of most of China's troubles for more than a hundred years. heir activities in the Bast Indies were investigated by Schlegel in 1863 and he came to the conclusion that they were eastern branch of Freemasonry. There is much in their ceremonies of initiation that confirms this opinion and there a large building on a prominent road in Shanghai which advertises itself, as the headquarters of Chinese Freemasonry. Local Masons have, we believe, investigated this organi zation and declare it has nothing in common with the craft and only usurps the name, probably, for the same reasons the "Red Spears" drape them-welves in the garb of religion.
Old residents will remember an extraordinary incident that happened in 1891. Mr. C. W. Mason, a member of the indoor Customs staff at Chinkiang, was sentenced to a year's imprisonment by the British Supreme Court for importing arms into China with intent to foment a solution, Mason had joined Kolachui, probably the only the law his reward was torture and summary decapitation, Though it may be confessed that the Chinese have a peculiar flair for secret societies, they have by no means a monopoly of mystery sects. There was the cult of Isis in Egypt which had 3 famous motto, "I am that which fs, has been and shall be. My veil no one has lifted." The Eleusynian mysteries in Greece, the' Jewish Cabbalists and many others are of the same nature.
Savage tribes have usually an initiation ceremony for adolescents and almost all religions have certain rites which suggest a secret mystery, The Holy Communion of the Christian church was long regarded by the Chinese non-Christians as some uncanny secret which concealed a dread and evil purpose not to be lightly penetrated by those not of the faith. Not seldom did the celebration of this ordinance convince the heathen onlookers that there was some weird spell cast over the partiefpants which impelled them to cast away their ancient faith for something impious and riots have occurred which had their origin in these misunderstandings. These days happily are past, but it will be interesting to see whether, when Nationalism shall have triumphed, the same secret sects which have aided it to reach its place in the sun will not turn again to play their favourite role and once more be again the government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.