Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-09-12
A TERRIBLE SOCIETY
THE CHINESE vEGETARlANS WHO
 MURDERED THE MISSIONARIES.

Most Mysterious Secret order-Bent on
 Pillage and Murder Disliked and Fear
 ed by Government and Peopie-some
 Account of Them.
 The Vegetarian society of the Chi nese empire IS at the present day the most talked about but the least under stood secret society in the world. The horrible massacre of Europeans by its frenzied members the other day is now matter of history. But of the society itself, it's aims and tenets, it's history and membership, little has been known.
 The blow already struck, unreasona- ble and unaccountable, may be repeat cd If 1t be true that the enormous assassins approves of the Ku-Chang hor- TOT then other terrible murders may be looked for.
 The Vegetarians arc Buddhists of the strictest sort They carry out this doc urine so far in their daily life that not only no meat, but no milk or butter, ey- CT passes their lips Taken altogether, they form one great secret society, re- garding the membership of which prac- tically nothing is known.
 Politics undoubtedly colors Vegetari- anism to it's utmost core. Whether or not the man who passes you on the streets of q Chinese city is Vegetarian is something that cannot be told. He certainly does not say.
 Also there is grade after grade of Vegetarianism. Some of the devotees of this doctrine absolutely abstain from all kinds of animal food permanently These really are the true Vegetarians, but quite as well to be included with them, should any sort of political out break come, are the men who only ab- stain from meat portion of the time. One sect, for example, refuses to touch any sort of animal food for the first 24 days of each month, it's members being perfectly at liberty to eat meat the re- maining week. Another sect leaves meat alone rigidly on certain days of the week and on other days eats it. All sorts of grades and shades make up this great party. It is 8 party much to be feared.
 One branch of this society says, For every four ounces of meat you nse ill this life you will have to pay back eight ounces i'll tho next. J Another way that they put 1t is that the chief doctrine of simple Vegetarianism is "a means of rectifying the heart, accommodating mer- 1t, avoiding ealamities i'll this life and retributive pains in the next ;
 Of all these organizations the govern ment heartily disapproves, for it sees a constant danger and menace to it in their enormous strength and power. There are so many of them, and they differ so much in minor principles that every grade of feeling and opinion is provided for. Money these societies seem to get ill unlimited quantities from somewhere-where it cannot be said. At all events, they have ample funds to push their propaganda and to gather in new members constantly One society may partially die out or become weaker, but another is always on hand to take its place and grow stronger out of this very weakness
 That the secret societies in China are exceedingly dangerous to the interests of peace in the Chinese empire it is easy to tell from the lawless deeds that are done by the gangs of men from the low CT classes who make them up. In the country districts they carry off persons for ransom; they plunder wherever any plumber is to be had; they assume the role of policemen and sail in pretended revenue cutters, stealing and carrying off women wherever 1t is possible
 They also have an arrangement with the farmers of their locality by which they get regular 'indemnities' from them, the farmer understanding per- feetly well that if he does not give these 'indemnitiesh the society will carry off his crop when it is ripe, before he has chance to harvest it.
 In the cities they fire houses at night and carry off property and people living in the house under the pretext of saving them.
 Besides this they have an unconquer- able dislike for foreigners of every kind. The antiforeign and the Vegetarian ele- ment are, in fact. one and the same. They are constant source of danger to the stranger within China's gates. = New York World.