Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1901-01-31
MASSACRES In China
BY CHRISTIANS

New York Evening Post.
Six months ago the press OF the civil |
lied void was filled with Rruesome
stories oil the massacre Of Christians by
Chinese today, Christendoni is or
ought 10 be, standing in shame and
confusion of face before the fact that
Christian troops In China have sur
passed the very Boxers 10 cruelty, In
outrages, IN rapne and rayage. Soldiers
letters and even sumo admissions by
officers hiah in command have reach ed
the public from time to time, and pre-
pared tho general mind for the horruIs
that were ce tain TO be brought to
light later. Bus even tho most appre-
hensiv Q could scarcely have been ex-
pecting such fearful tale of wreck
aud slaughter as Is given us in this
months English magazines, by the two
eye-witnesses whuse testimony cannot
be disputed. One of them is Sir Robert
Hart. He declares, In the Fortnightly,
that 1.-THE day of Taepinadom, when
native warred with native, showed
nothing worse' than the atrocities
committed by the allied forces 10 China.
The mot detailed account, however,
IS that In the Contemporary, by DIR.
u. j. Dillon. Readers may rememb Der
him as the man who, six years ago.
was giving to the word the full story
oftthe Turkish massacres in Armenia.
He speaks thus as an expert in all
matters OF flemish cruelty. Certainly
no one but "a man with nerves of steel
could have witnessed the sights which
he beheld in China and come away
sane. His reports are too horrible, in
their darkest features, to be reprinted.
We limit ourselves to one or two of his
less lurid pictures. Having one day to
step over eight human bodies lying in
an alley in TunR tschau, DIR. Dillon
asked a nnp-co pmissioned officer why
the eight Cinnamon had been killed.
Eighth he answered; there are
seven more down there. What they
did: All they could. They actually
did nothing. Ask what they would have
done, and shall answer Arson.
They were suspected of an intention to
set lire to houses here"
This was but an example of the way
in which thousands Of men, women, and
children throughout three Chinese
provinces were butchered ON suspicion,
or out OF mere whim. The rivers were
choked with corpses. The dead lay in
heaps in the burned towns. Neither
age nor sex was spared. DIR. Dillon's
pages show that all the wholesale
murders and fortunes of history this
massacre of the innocents by Herod,
the Dragonades, the slaughter Of the
Waldenses, even the Cutting Of Turkish
fury in Bulgaria and Armenia--must
yield in completeness Of horror to the
work of the soldiers of Christian
nations, who had gone to China for the
sake OF rebuking heather cfuelties
On one aspect of DR.. Dillon's revela-
tions We can touch but shudderingly as
we pass. This is the frightful extent
OF the frightful crimes against Chinese
women. Some OF the specific cases he
gives would be Incredible. did he not
cite names and places and declare what
his own eyes had seen. We seem to be
reading of uDspeakaGle monsters. A fter
one piteous tale Of mingled outrage
and bloodshed, DR.. Dillon adds;
II knew OF others whose wives and
daughters hanged themselves on trees
or drowned themselves in garden wells,
10 order to escape a much worse lot
Chinese women honestly believed that
no more terrible fate could overtake
them than to fall alive into the hands
of Europeans and Americans, And 1t
10 to be feared that they were right.
Buddhism AID Confuoianism have their
martyrs to chastity, whose heroic feats
no marlyrology will ever record. Some
OF these obscure, but right-minded,
girls and women hurled themselves into
the river, and, finding only TIRES feet
of water there, kept THEN heads under
the surface until death had set his seal
on the sacrifice of their life
But a large number of ill-starred
women fell alive into the hands of the
allied troops. | saw some of them III
Pekln and Tungtsohau, but already
dead with frightful gashes in the breast
or skulls smashed 10 and one with a
horribly mutilated body. There is q
lady missionary in Pokin who in COM
pany with a female colleague busted
herself to my kno Wedge for months in
shielding Chinese women and girls from
being raped by Christian and European
soldiers and the work was anything but
easy though l have reason to believe
that 1t has proved eminently success
full. Even in the broad daylight soldiers
hung about the Refuge and employed
various devices and tricks to get hold
OF the women whom they ought to have
been the first to protect"
10 come down after this to mere loot
ing is comparative relief. In this
systematic stealing the soldiers of all
nationalities took a part. The Japanese
officers were the first to get their men
in hand and repress and punish looting
next in order of merit came the Ameri.
cans. But the robbery was wholesale
and unblushing. Writing of what be
saw in Pekin Sir Robert Hart says that
even some missionaries took such a
leading part in spelling the Egyptians'
for the greater glory of God that
bystander was heard to say For cen.
tony to come Chinese converts will
consider looting and vengeance Chris.
tian virtues !''
We are clad and proud to say that
Dr. Dillon exonerates American troops
from anything but minor and
sporadic share in the atrocities. Indeed
he says that SO far as he knows mo
ohlcers or soldiers of English OF
German. speaking nationalities have
been guilty OF the denominations against
defenceless women.' This agrees with
the accounts of Japanese newspaper
correspondents in China who placed the
American detachment first latter the
Japanesel in point Of discipline and
good behavior. DIR. Dillun is of the
same mind as other impartial observers
10 regard to the Japanese. They were,
ne says" the only Power among the
ailles who understood the natives,
gained their confidence, restored per.
feet order and re. established the reign
OF law. This was heaping GOALS Of
flre with vengeance upon the heads
OF Those Christian nations which were
exclaiming with horror at the Japapese