A message to the Chinese Press reports that the Chief of General {Staff in Peking has telegraphed to General Chang Fu-lai, Tuchun of Honan, instructing him "either to suppress the robbers his province by force or accept them as members of the regular army, but they must first give up the arms in their possession." It is perfectly easy to see; Wwhat this message means, assuming that it is accurate, as, in the cir-; cumstances, it may well be; and it to be hoped that no effort will be spared by the Ministers of the different foreign captives in protesting strongly against any such craven surrender to the outlaws.: Mrs. Ledgard in the letter we published yesterday estimated that; there are 30,000 of them, former _soldiers of the ex-Tuchun Chao; Ti; and they say plainly that their sole aim in kidnapping missionaries is to compel the authori-ities to re-enlist them. It is even rumoured that they hoped to catch the American Minister during his recent trip into Honan. If they tare tamely yielded to, in the way that the message quoted suggests, {no missionary in China will be safe. It will be plain to every brigand in the country that Kidnapping missionaries is a game; that pays. The only proper course is to teach them a lesson vi et armis.
This will lengthen the captivity of their present victims, but it will be for the good of all the mission-; ary community and the fine self-sacrificing spirit shown in Mrs. Ledgard's letter, if typical of all, as we believe it is, suggests that jthe captives themselves would glad-acquiesce.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.