The Press., 1894-12-13
(From Harpers Weekly.) AMERICAN HELPLESSNESS IN
 CHINA.

The two Japanese who were taken from our consul-general here at Shanghai have been decapitated after suffering excrucia- ting torture, and all Americans are forced into the position of apologists for their country. ..
 They took the young men to Nanking, where they tortured them for two, some say for three, days. They made them kneel on iron chains, with bar of wood across their legs, and men standing on the bar. They pulled out their finger nails. They put chains on their wrists and poured boiling water on the chains until the metal ate it's way to the prison CTS bones. They crushed the tongues of the two men. They mashed into jelly the tenderest, most sensitive members of their bodies. When death was about to have it's own way with their mutilated frames. it was hurried by the executioner's sword. That one of them died exclaiming, "You may kill me, but my emperor will honor me-" is no more to the point than the fact that they confessed under torture, or the further fact that the Chinese in sist that they were truly spies.
 The Chinese government has informed the world that these men were not tor tured.- Unfortunately the Chinese are not always truthful, and in this case all Nanking disputes the denial.
 Shanghai is now the Mecca of Europe ans and Americans from all over northern and central China. They have come from Picking, where the European ministers fear immediate rioting, and perhaps 8 revolution that will overthrow the pres ent dynasty. They have come here from Nanking, where the torture of the two Japanese-parts of it being such as I can- not state in decency-has excited the peo- pie and made European life worthless. They have come here from all along the great -tse-Kiang Valley, where the Chinese millions are bubbling with ex- citement, fear of conquest, and anti-for- eign animosity. We have no houses to be let; we have no spare rooms in the hotels. Shanghai is full. have recently made journey into the interior, which was safely and pleasantly accomplished, but which l should not care to repeat, Your artist, Mr. c. D. Weldon covered his boards and canvases with rich treas- ure of reproductions of the beautiful and picturesque scenery, art, and architecture and customs that surrounded us, but yes- terday an artist for a great London peril odical was hooted and hustled out of the walled Chinese city of Shanghai, only a l mile from the room in which am writing this. Even during our journey we met thousands of recruits for the Chinese army coming down to the seaboard in junks, ununiformed and motley in garb, but full of an enthusiasm that might easi ly infiame the people against us.
 We Caucasians are three thousand strong here, and have in this peculiar lit tie Anglo-American republic, an armed force of 450 men to face the 400. 900 Mon- golians who are on our land and in the walled city beside it. We do not antici- pate trouble or danger, but we cannot say that it may not come. Great Britain has about two dozen war-ships here and near by, and is about to send number of pow. erful vessels here to protect the English in China in case of revolution or anti foreign. uprisings: Russia has large fleet in these waters, and Germany and France has a splendid naval force at hand Therefore we Americans, who still man. age some of the greatest businesses al this port, are warranted in feeling that safety which the guns of other nations will insure us.