The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-20 00:00:00

STATE OF CHINA.

The Unifiers publishes a letter of Sept. 20, from a
person belonging to the Virginie frigate at Wo
Sung, not far from Shanghae, which contains some
particulars that are interesting :
Whilst you in France have suffered from inundations,
the heavens have, as it were to balance matters, refused
to shed upon China a single drop of water. This has
caused a dreadful famine, and great numbers of the inha-
bitants of Fo-King are dying of hunger. There is another
scourge upon the land this year ? I do not mean the re-
bels, for we are used to them, but the locusts which
ravage the fields. Even on board ship we are overrun
by them, but here, as they find nothing to devour, they
cannot do much harm. There are scarcely any fruits or
green vegetables to be had, nevertheless our men who
were suffering from scurvy, are beginning to do better.
You are doubtless aware that the Chinese rebellion is
becoming stronger and stronger, and that we shall be
obliged very soon to court the alliance of our former ene-
mies. They are now in the permanent occupation of
Nankin, having repaired the damage done by themselves
when the city was sacked. All the right bank of the
river is in their possession, to the distance of 60 miles
up from this place where we now are. Since the events
which took place at Shanghae, we have had no occasion
to complain of the conduct of the rebels, who pay due
respect to bhe French residents in the country, and
whilst they beat the soldiers of the Son of the Moon
wherever they can meet them, take care strictly to ob-
serve the treaties which exist between the Chinese go-
vernment and our own. We cannot, however, say as
much for the imperialist party. The French admiral, on
board the Virginie, has just received, through M. de
Courcy, Our charge d'affaires, a complaint of the conduct
of a mandarin in the province of Than Ton, and of the
cruel death which had been inflicted upon a French mis-
sionary there.
The details of his martyrdom are, indeed, most hor-
rible. The Chinese, even after their victim was dead,
persecuted his remains with a savage and unrelenting
hatred. His head was stuck upon the point of a pike,
and the children were enoouraged to throw stones at it
for several days. What is still more frightful, and will
hardly be believed as a fact, is that his heart was cut in
pieces, then cooked along with some pigs tripe, and
eaten by the soldiers of the rnandarba—tigere rather than
men.
The missionary who has thus been put to death Nvaa
named Chapelaine. We, upon arriving at Macao, shall
demand satisfaction from the Viceroy at Canton. The
discussions with the Chinese government, which will
ensue upon this affair, are likely to be very protracted
and they will result, I have no doubt, in the executing'
of some criminal or other, dressed up as a mandarin, to
pass for the guilty official. That is what we may call
Chinese justice.

CASUALTIES AT SEA.--The following have put into
Plymouth in consequence of the late gales :—The bark
Perpetua, Captain Owen, from Sunderland, out three
weeks, for Madeira, with loss of fore and main topmasts,
jibboom, &c., the cutter-yacht Sverge, Captain Collis,
of and from Liverpool, Nov. 29, bound to the south
coast of Africa, rudder carried away by a heavy sea on
the 6th Dec., is lat. 46.20 S , long 12.8 W. ; and the
brig Marian, Captain Leister, from London, for San-
tander, with pumps choked.
A ROBBER SHOT By V
A ir
•. omAN. About two o'clock
yesterday (Friday) mornin a widow named Elizabeth
Braithwaite, who keeps ags,mall shop in Summer-lane,
Barnsley, Yorkshire, was awakened by hearing some
persons talking in front of her house. In a short time
some one tried the front door, to which a bell is
attached, and Mrs. Braithwaite, on hearing the bell ring,
Ileaped out of bed, opened the window, and saw four men
standing close to the door. She asked them what they
'
wanted, and one of the men said, "Two of you go round
to the back door." On hearing this Mrs. Braithwaite
pistol immediataly fired off a lat the men, when one of
them fell on the ground,
states, was carried away and,b hisa the cuassocoiarteasgeous woman
An alarm
was raised, but the Apolice did not succeed in apprehend-
ing any of the men. piece of rag, supposed to have
been torn off one of the villains shirts, was found close
to Mrs. Braithwaite's house-door, saturated with blood,
which seems to show that one of the men was wounded.