Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1892-02-11
Beheaded by Hundreds,


A Shanghai correspondent gives de-
tails of terrible atrocity committed by
Chinese rebels on the border of Man
churia, and Of equally terrible punish
ment inflicted by government troops up
on the captured rebels. These rebels
were led by several Buddhist priests,
and they were especially savage against
native Christians. At one place they
burned sixty children and butchered
nine Chinese nuns. At another they
cremated sixty men whom they impris-
oned in barn. Their expeditions were
solely for plunder and without political
purpose. Viceroy Ii sent large army
against them, and their strength was
broken. Hundreds Of prisoners were
taken.
The punishment meted out to the
rebels by their conquerers was most re-
voting and the executions were con-
Quoted on wholesale scale. Men were
beheaded by hundreds, and entire trunks
of trees we're utilized as blocks along
which prisoners were ranged In lines
and their executioners simply moved OF
their heads when the signal was given.
Generally in China the condemned are
ranged in small knots kneeling before
the executioner, but here the wretched
miscreants were too numerous for the
usual rules to be observed and they
were seized by their queues by soldiers
from the other side of the lately i'm
provised blocks and their heads Topped
off. They were not even tied and the
headless trunks fell against the block
or tumbled backward or to one side
when the fatal sword severed the neck.
The heads were hung in long rows on
/ IN IN in n
short time intense cold froze the bodies
stiff, but not before camp followers and
ghouls had stripped them of every atom
of clothing.
The rebels, it appears, were mostly
bandits, who roam the country just out
side the walls OF China Last spring
they joined forces and entered upon a
regular plan Of campaign Of plunder
The most horrible atrocities we're per-
petrated by these wandering despera-
does. Eye witnesses state that almost
the entire population OF villages was
cruelty maltreated and murdered. The
burning of children alive, the brutal
treatment and murder of women, the
carrying off Of everything from the
homes of the wretched people, was the
general line of conduct of these inhu-
man fiends.
A case in point is the occurrence at 0
village called Kutulan, in the Jehol pre-.
lecture, Manchuria. A band of 50(
marauders swooped down upon this
place In the dead of night, captured al
whom they did not kill outright, ant
finally carried away with them all th'
women. Before going, they put sixt,
men in a large barn, securely fastened
all places of egress, and set fire to thu
Il. HI e 1ltw.
burned alive reached the ears of few
persons who had escaped to the hills
The scene was frightful in the extreme
This, however, is only one of a dozeI
such incidents.
The rebels raided and destroyed Chris
tian and heather villages alike, but K
captives of the former places they acteC
in particularly ferocious manner. A
Talijow, which has been Christian TO
two centuries, they massacred nine Chi
nese sisters, nuns, and burned the or
phanage, which contained sixty little in
mates. The piercing OF the bodies o
captives with heated bayonets AM
spears, the gouging out of eyes, the dis
emboweling or burying alive Of victims
were among the atrocities practiced b.
the rebels. One band is said to hav
been led by a huge amazon, who rod
astride her horse like man. 1t was re
ported among her followers that sh
drank the blood OF victims in order b
maintain her courage.
The suppression of the revolt Is no
entirely due to the forts of the Chimes
Government. 1t was really the extrem
cold that had the most to do with 1t
The robbers could not stand the cam
paigning in the winter weather, an
they retired TO their strongholds in tn,
hills