Los Angeles herald., 1891-12-03
[special Correspondence.l

Chinese Empire.
Especial Correspondence.l
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 4-For some
months past we have been receiving news
OF mobs and riotings In China, which were
apparently directed only toward foreigners.
The matter has become so serious that it
has attracted the attention of various gov
ernments having people there, and steps
have been taken to suppress the disturb
ances--by intimidation, il that will do it;
by stronger means, presumably, if bluff
fails.
These riots almost always take the turn
Of razing or burning buildings occupied
by Europeans and Americans, and usually
are confined to the property of churches or
missions. Occasionally murder or mas
sacre is resorted to, but not often The
reason for this immunity from personal
violence is not due so much to any aversion
on the part of those in the mobs to taking
life, but largely to the fact that they have
no firearms, and do not like the proximity
to foreigners necessary to take life with
clubs or knives.
4>CtEiy dll lOEclgutIS are Wtu dTucu,
and the presence of game of all kinds
keeps them in practice in the use of the
shotgun. The lower classes, who as rule
are engaged in these riots, have very crude
ideas of foreign guns, and breechloaders
are to them inexhaustible magazines
which will shoot a hundred rounds with
out loading. Hence, if foreigners have
any premonitory information. they can
generally rally at some central point, afloat
II near the water, and be comparatively safe
from violence. But such concentration
requires that their homes be left to the
mercy of the merciless rabble and they are
destroyed before the mob scatters
The question as to the exciting motive
for these mobs has been raised and an
swered in various ways. Editors in this
country have quite generally concluded
that the motive for it is an incpient revolt
against the reigning dynasty, and in this
line comes the information that Great
Britain has entered into an agreement
with the emperor to sustain him in any
such crisis. To those at all familiar with
the recent history of China this informa-
tion is not news. England is interested in
keeping the present ruler or the govern
ment he represents in power Her course
in the past shapes her present policy in
that direction.
That the recurring indications of hostil-
fly to Europeans is not due to any desire
to overturn the ruling throne by involving
the country in a foreign war is evident to
me. The rioters care but little one way or
the other as to who is emperor of China,
and even if they did seek to overthrow the
government they would certainly not
seek it through a foreign war; They have
learned by experience that such war only
means an added burden of taxation for
them. To get at the real motives in these
attacks, it will be necessary to recall the
history of China for the past fifty years
or SO.
AS Is we'll known, the East India COM
pany introd uced into China the use of
opium, in order to create a market for
that product. 1t gained such rapid de-
mand that the government issued an edict
against it, making it contraband and it's
use criminal offense.
Under authority of this edict an officer
at Canton seized a cargo of opium and
threw it into the sea. The vessel promptly
returned to British India and reported the
fact. Great Britain Immediately gave no.
tice that unless ample indemnity was paid
the island of Hong-Kong ceded to the
British crown, and five treaty ports be
opened for foreign residence and trade,
and opium recognized as a commodity of
commerce, bombardment would follow.
There was no alternative but for China to
submit. to the terms imposed.
Since then one excuse after another has
arisen for still further encroachments,
until now there are over twenty open treaty
ports, and all navigable rivers are open to
foreign bottoms. Every treaty port in
China was opened at the mouth of loaded
cannon, and not one European is in the do
minion of the dragon flag by the invitation
of the country. From the first until now,
foreigners have been constant menace
and aggravation to the people, and the
knowledge that they were powerless to
prevent it has but added fury to their rage
Aside from the few merchants and serv-
ant classes who get valuable trade and en-
ployment from them, the feeling of hostil-
ity is widespread and general. In addition
to the enforced opium traffic, the French
government has given great provocation to
outbreaks by forced concessions to her citi-
zens in China
Another source of dangeris the tendency
among foreigners to assume an unnecessa-
rily overbearing attitude of superiority,
and to give unnecessary insults to the ma
tives Such insults are never forgotten,
and are revenged upon the first foreigner
that chances to fall within their power
Hostility to the Christian missionaries
of course has much to do with the present
feeling toward foreigners. The schools
and orphanages excite the liveliest hatred.
The people cannot understand the motive
inducing the missionaries to take such in
terest in the children of the outcast and
low orders of society, and invariably as
cribe some sinister motive. The missions
all have medical adjuncts, and their ply
sfcians are marvels of the healing art to
these tpeople, and their skill is attributed
to some occult agency. The native doctors
compound herbs and roots and use bones
and claws of tigers and grewsome mall
formations and relics.
They have come to believe that foreign
doctors use the liquid of the human eye
in compounding medicines. Hence when
a child is missed, If near church or mis-
sion, the cry is raised that the foreigners
have stolen the child to gouge its eyes out
for medicine. A mob at once forms, and
not one stone is left upon another until
the church is razed to the ground. The
Methodist mission at Kioo Kiang was thus
looted a few years ago in search of a lost
boy, who was afterward found sound
asleep at home under bed.
Recent dispatches indicate that at Woo
Chang, large city on the south shore
and Immediately opposite Han-Kow, the
walls were bulletined that the foreigners
were shortly to be driven out. That city