To the Editor of the Sin,—Is there not some danger, in this correspondence, of forgetting the proper feelings of the relations of two very gallant English Indies?) Mr. W, Addison makes certain suggestions, based, gather, upon what he has heard in the past, that both these ladies may have been misled by an unreasoning belief in the protec tion they were likely to receive! from Divine and Government! sources, T saw Miss Nettleton in Halifax before her return to China about a couple of years ago. quite well aware of the gr of the present danger in China, and probably she had been advised to remain in safety. She had very direct faith in God's pro: tection, bat what she dreaded was not death, but the danger of being unfaithful to her duty. She said in so many words that she simply. could not desert her Chinese: Christian, fellow-labourers. Such 4 spirit may seem folly to some of your readers, but it is not fair to suggest that it was based upon' inability to realize the reality of danger.
Miss Nettleton certainly was, under no mote illusions than an old soldier returning to Flandera fter short leave. She faced it in the same spirit.
Mr. Addison makes a startling suggestion, also based, I think, upon hearsay, that these two! Indies remained in the danger! zone because they believed that the British Government would protect them. This Suggestion I believe to be ridiculously untrue. T have known many missionaries who have hotly opposed the right of the British Government to interfere with China. I have never niet one who was fool enough to terior that he did own risk. Mission ppudiated compensation that has been screwed by the British Government from the Chinese for brutal marciers, and I do not believe that one of them really believes in the policy of paying ran-
On the very night that the! news of the nlirders reached Eng. land T telegraphed my. sympathy to the old mother of Miss Nettle. ton, and I expressed my belief that her daughter would have re-fured deliverance, if deliverance bad entailed additional danger to other English women in Chin That constitutes, as everyone who knows China knows, the real Aificulty of paying ransoms, and fs also the real difficalty of leaving outrages upon foreign women unpunished. It is ingulfing to the mentality of these two gallant ladies to suggest that they Gid_ not realize these difficulties. Te is insulting to. their sincerity to assume that they wished to be ransomed at any price.
T do not profess to sit in judgment upon the chaffering between the authorities and the bandits upon the amount of the ransom. T-can believe that the authorities did their very best to meet a iffcult situation, and certainly the two Englishmen who conducted the negotiations were galla men. Iam concerned for the honour of the two murdered mis-jon aries, one of whom T knew, and Tam equally concerned for} liber blind widowed mother and the relatives—Yours, etc, Geonce H. Froosua'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.