At the foot of some hills about two miles north of the Summer Palace, about eight miles outside Peiping lies the large two-storeyed building of the Marist Brothers seminary, where students are trained for educational work. Near the top of these hills lies another building,.a kind of summer retreat, called "La Cuvette." At this seminary were assembled at the end of August 13, Marist brothers and other priests of different nationjalities—some of the latter were merely on a visit—together with the students and many hundreds of Chinese refugees.
Early on August 30 the seminary was raided by a band of irregulars numbering about 200 who formed part of a larger group of over 1,000, Irregulars is the best word for them, seeing that they were a very nondescript crowd in every respect, Some wore complete uniform, some part of a uniform, others a military cap, and others were in ordinary plain clothes; they were armed with every possible kind of weapon including rifles, mauser pistols and swords—some were not armed at all.
They were composed too of entirely different types; students who had joined up solely for patriotic reasons to carry on guerilla war against the Japanese, of whom the leader of the band mas one; the others were escaped prisoners from a gaol that had been opened by escaping Paoantui near Peiping, disbanded militia and police, end even professional bandits, To the last class belonged the second in command who was responsible for the kidnapping of the priests and the cruelties practised on the Chinese refugees—though not on the foreigners—in the efforts to extract money from them.
Many of the students could talk English and were well-disposed towards their foreign captives. Indeed, their original idea in raiding the seminary was the hope of finding arms, munitions and money there and of obtaining further recruits from among the students of the seminary. But the professional brigand element was too strong, and it was they who looted the refugees and insisted on carrying off the foreigners, in order ito hold them for ransom.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.