The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-28

cesses. I hasten to add that no partic- ular nationality is involved, nor yet are the missionaries or soldiers of any sin gle power, but those of all nations, so that if paralleled with the heroic &C., tions accomplished, we were to reckon up the melancholy events and inglori- ous exhibitions of conduct of which Pe- kin was then the theater. volumes would not suffice. MT. Waldeck- -Rous- seau displayed, therefore, the most pru- dent cool headedness when, so to say, he improvised the committee which will undertake to select the claimants for indemnities, promising to furnish it with all the details of the report. It is to be presumed that this committee will be composed of men whom politi- cal passion will not incite to hand over to the public the names of those men of women who furnished an example of the basest cupidity and a lust for theft, all the more shameful because the inn punity was absolute, to those whose minds and souls they pretended to pur- fly and ennoble. All nations must share this shame, and it must be passed over in silence, for all are involved.
 At the outset of his report General Voyron offers long explanations on the charges of pillage preferred against French soldiers in China. He says that in a general way the French troops were much more reserved than those of the other nations. If certain acts of pillage were committed by French off, cers and soldiers, they were severely repressed, and in any case were only isolated instances. Once only de- clares General Voyron, the French sol diers were led away to pillage methodi- cally and en masse, but they were incl ted by the missionaries. The report then continues textually:
 The missionaries, no doubt, well in formed, came to Prince Lis palace on the morning of the 17th with forty carts and two to three hundred native Christians employed as coolies, and be- gan a methodical search. They gath cred up the silver ingots, and thus col lected an important sum. They got themselves aided in this operation by soldiers and sailors stationed at Pei Tang, to whom as gratuity they gave personal checks of the value of two thousand francs on the sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul in France. On learn ing the lot that had befallen their com rades, certain men not at Pei-Tang abandoned their cantonments and came to seek silver bars for themselves Be- ing unable to utilize them, they ex- changed them for checks bearing their names on one Chamot Pekin restaurant keeper or on the Pere Pro- cureur of the mission. These ex- changes, the amount of which it is not easy to determine, were made, it ap- pears, at a very heavy rate of interest. General Frey was in a pecu- liar situation This seizure had not been ordered. and took place unknown to him. To leave in the possession of persons in question the checks deliv- cred to them individually by the mis- sion or the man Chamot would have been a real encouragement to maraud- ing and pillage.
 The report goes on to say that the checks given to the soldiers by the missionaries were either partially pooled in common fund or returned to the missionaries, but the French sailors refused to give back their checks. Fiji nally a check for five thousand francs was written in Mgr. Favier's name in compensation for the checks which had been handed as gratuities to soldiers who had assisted the missionaries in carrying off the money and which these soldiers had turned into a common fund Paris Correspondence of the London Times.