The record-union., 1891-12-08
THE DANGER OF CHINA.
How the Celestials Are Stirred Up
to Massacre Missionaries.

Photographic Material-How Soft
Soap Ruined SIissionary-The
Tientsin Massacre.
The critical situation in China calls at
tention to the fact that the Chinese mis-
sion is still unsettled. A new Minister
will probably be appointed by President
Harrison during the coming session, and
through these recent troubles the post of
Tekin has sprung into the greatest i'm
portance. There is chance for states
man to make a reputation in China. The
country seems to be on the eve of revo-
luton, and the protection of our foreign
citizens there is going TO require both
nerve and diplomacy. During my visit
to China about two years ago found a
majority of the people opposed to for
eigners, and at every one of the treaty
ports there was an anti-foreign party
which did all it could to excite the masses
against the foreigners. Among other
things they published a magazine which
was illustrated. The magazine contained
graphic description of how the foreign
ers ground up Chinese children and made
medicine of them. 1t had pictures Of
American girls packing the medicine in
boxes, and in the same cuts were pictures
of seething cauldrons, in the soup of
which babies arms, legs and heads
bobbed up and down. In one picture the
babies were being cut up for grinding,
and in another the pieces OF them were
being weighed so that just so much Chi
nese baby went to each package of medi-
81 .ls,fS -,
me, stated tnat this was common method
of making medicine in China, and that
the Americans and English had as their
chief business in China the making of
such medicines, and that they stole Chi
nese babies for this purpose.
The great disturbance which We had in
Corea some years ago. when our naval
force was called to the Capital from one of
our vessels in the harbor Of ChemuIpo to
defend the American Minister, arose from
this anti-foreign influence which has also
strength in Corea. These people had cir
culated the report that the Americans
were stealing little Corean babies and
grinding up their eyes to make photo
graphic materials. 1t was whispered
abroad that an American liked nothing
better than slice of Corean baby done
brown, and the statement was current
throughout the hundred thousand huts
of the Corean capital that our Minister,
Mr.. Dinsmore, had given a party the
week before, at which two juicy babies
had been served to the guests. The peo-
pie were wild. Mother-love and father
love is as strong among the Celestials as
among the Christians, and such state
ments as these make Chinese and Corean
blood boil. The masses look upon the
foreigners as barbarianS, and they are
willing to believe them. Our Minister
would have been mobbed at Corea at
this time had it not been for the King,
who sent out a proclamation saying that
any man who was found circulating such
reports would be executed, and telling
the people that these foreigners were
kind-hearted, cultured people like them
selves, and that they would not be so in
human as to eat babies.
During my stay at Canton / met mis-
sionary and his family from the interior
of China. The man came from Ohio, and
he was a very intelligent fellow. His
sister, a medical missionary, was with
him. Their house had been burned and
they had been mobbed by the Chinese
through this superstition in regard to
American medicine. 1t happened that
this medical missionary had young
Chinaman who was studying medicine
with her, ana this Chinaman had in some
way obtained possession of a skeleton,
which he kept in his room at the mis-
Sionary'S house. The Chinese know
nothing of anatomy, and their medical
system consists largely in doses as big
as horse powders, and in superstitious in
carnations, the burning of Joss paper,
and such things. They know nothing of
the use Of the skeleton, and their rever-
ence for their ancestors is such that they
would decidedly resent our custom of
dissection. Now, just at the time that
this skeleton was lying on the table in
the young Chinaman's room, the wife of
the missionary got out of soap. She had
been raised in the country, and she con-
ciuded to make some soft soap as she had
seen her parents do at home. She made
barrel OF it. Then the story became
noised abroad that this mission
ary's home was medicine factory,
and something like three or four Chinse
babies were ground up in it every day
A mob collected within a short time and
attacked the house. They found the soap.
1t was new material TO Chinese eyes,
and 1t smelled like medicine. They went
upstairs and found the bones, and the
evidence was prima facie so strong that
they burned the house, and the mis-
sionary's family had narrow escape for
their lives.
The terrible Tientsin massacre of 1870,
in which the Catholic Sisters of the
orphanage OF that city were killed, came
from this charge that they were stealing
Chinese babies and cooking them for
medicine. Tientsin is a city of nearly a
million people, and the mob numbered
thousands. They burst into this French
missionary establishment, set fire to the
convent and literally tore the women to
pieces and then threw their remains into
the flames. There were a hundred
children in the orphanage, and these
were seized and thrown into prison and
questioned. They would not say any
thing against the Sisters, aud at the end
of six weeks they were given over to
missionaries who were sent from Pekin
TO take care of them. There were many
other foreigners killed during this
massacre. and the Chinese in mob like
this do not distinguish between Ameri-
can and English or between French and
German. All are the same to them.
They are foreign barbarians, and they
call them all by the names of Red
headed, blue-eyed. foreign Devils" and
foreigner cannot go along the streets of a
Chinese city without being greeted with
this epithet. He does not understand it
because he does not know Chinese, but
the yilest of jokes and the most vulgar of
expressions are uttered against the
foreigners as they pass through the
streets of the larger Chinese Cities
Washington correspondence of the st.
Louis Globe-Democrat.