The age-herald., 1900-08-22
HOW MISSIONARIES
 MAKE LOTSOF MONEY

A gentleman, says the Chattanooga Times,
 who spent a number of years in China,
 connected with railroad enterprise, and who returned to Chattanooga several months ago, furnished a Times reporter
 with the following interview on the Chinese
 situation:
 Nearly all of the missionaries whom costume. Both sexes were so dressed, and
 in reply to my inquiry as to why they did
 this I was told that they considered it safer to go about dressed as natives and
 that It suited their purpose in many other ways.
 This started a new train of thought in
 my mind and one day I asked one of our consu1s what, in view of the fact that both
 missionaries and pupils wore the native
 dress, became of the clothing and otr IT
 good things sent over to our mi laTa by various churches and c' rites for ls- tribution among the he. t
 "He explained that all tHaz to he
 missionaries for the poor her gre e1- tered at the treaty ports h f church in America sends fz Rev. Fiddle, D. D., Pei He nina. !. shipped in care of some lar 1aar ufi house in San Francisco, whi, Gre a [. spirit of benovolence and do-gol ase to attend to the shipping of ba3eH without compensation.
 This, of course looks very W r.. face of the returns, but the facts
 Rev. Fiddle and others of his kin agents for these benevolent San F. .H concerns, who ship back their OWL o5 in boxes marked and labelled so tn Il cannot tell it from the one containin seal
 skin Bibles and Arctic overshoes from the W. c. T. U, Wayback, N J. Thus the
 missionary receives, for every box of gifts
 from his church in America, from ten to
 dozen others containing goods from the
 San Francisco concern, all of which is en-
 tered as stuff for the poor heathen' free of
 duty, at the treaty port of entry Some
 of the missionaries buy direct, but have an understanding with the American house
 that the goods he orders are to be so marked that they can be easily smuggled in as missionary stuff for the heather. 'rBut this was not all, the consul went
 on to relate, "and subsequently, I had the
 matter verified before my senses on twen- ty or more occasions, that the missionaries not only sold the goods which he ordered from the American merchants, but he also disposed of the box of clothing for the heathen to Americans and Europeans. subsequently learned this to my profit, and found that when, in out-of-the-way parts of China, I needed any underwear shoes, a hat coat, pants, etc, I would always
 buy same from the missionary a very low price.
 By reason of this smuggling of wares,
 missionaries were and are able to sell
 goods very much cheaper than the regular merchant who pays import duty. I know of a number of poor missionaries who went to China several years ago with nothing but a little black valise, a consumptlVe's
 cough and his monthly pittance, who when , he returned home will be worth from S50,- | GOO to ,000.
 "This, of course, will be earned pfeach~ ing the gospel to the heather and incident ally carrying on a smuggling business | There are many honest missionaries in Chi
 ma. but they are not in a very consnenous
 majority.
 ."The consul also told me and I had al-
 ready learned the same thing, that vast
 number of Chinese merchants arc in the
 business of importing goods of the same
 character, as those smuggled in by miaslon-
 aries The competition between the two
 classes was causing trouble while I was there, and the consul predicted just what
 has come to pass. The Chinese are not fools, and when they see a man preaching
 the doctrine of humility and abnegation, on one occasion, and seII'- '7seng aDd cot ton goods on another, they begin to think foIIr mn and actee belly blad."