River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1912-03-07
TROOPS TO PEkIN
MANY FOREIGN MISSIONARIES
PEPoRTED MURDERED
BY MUTINEERS.
Observation-Disclosures
American Soldiers Ordered to Capital
Residents At Mercy of Armed
Forces-LoyaI Guards Decap-
itate Prisoners.

Pekin, China. = Foreign ministers
here after conference have decided
TO bring into Picking all the available
foreign troops stationed in adjacent
ports in China. A force of 1000
troops of various nationalities has ar
rived. The meeting was called part
Iy as result of a communication from
Tang Shao vi, asking the powers to
take measures to prevent further
bloodshed and loss Of propertyin Pc
king. The foreign troops are mounted
and will patrol the city during the
daytime.
A trainload of mutinous soldiers be-
longing to the garrison of Pao Ting
Flu started for Picking, but the railroad
authorities blew up the bridge and
stopped the traffic. Chang Hsuai-
Chih's soldiers have killed many in
nocent persons passing along the
streets of Pekin, carrying parcels.
They were mostly panicstricken peo-
pie fleeing from the city with their
own effects.
Soldiers Loot Palace.
Artillery, headed by a band,
marched to the palace of Duke Kuei-
Hsiang, father of the empress dow
ager, and battered down the gate, loot
ing and burning portion of the
palace.
Although parties of soldiers belong
ing to the army commanded by Chang
Huai-Chih were themselves engaged in
looting, they are now fighting the
looters in the outskirts of the city.
Any prisoners taken by them are sum-
marily decapitated and many headless
bodies are lying in the streets.
In the night, particularly in the dis
tant part of the West City, whole
streets of shops were sacked and
many houses were set on fire. The
civilian population is arming and bar
Reading private premises, while bar
ricades also are being erected in the
streets for purposes of defense.
The mutineers who left Picking for
Pao-Ting-Fu and whom Yuan-Shi-Kai
ordered to be arrested or killed by the
garrison of that city, have been
joined by many of the soldiers there.
They have looted great part of Pao-
Ting-Fu and burned large areas of the
city.
Another gang of mutineers visited
and looted Feng Tai, twenty-five miles
from Peking on the railroad to Tien
Tsin. The British troops who are
guarding the railroad there protected
the women and children but the mutt
neers looted and burned the railway
station and held up a train, robbing
many of the Chinese passengers.
Yung- Ping Flu, where the American
troops are guarding the railroad to
Ching Wang Tao, also was looted.
1t is evident that all the soldiers of
the northern Chinese army are in
agreement with the pillaging move
ment. They are under the belief that
the coming of the republican delegates
from Marking to Yuan Shi Kai means
the dismissal of the northern troops
from the service.
Many missionaries have been
slaughtered by the mutineers in Pao
Ting Flu, according to a report re-
ceived here. 1t is believed the victims
are Roman Catholics.
Soldiers Loot in Tien Tsin.
Tein Esin.-Rioting of serious ma
ture took place here. The outbreak
had been feared and precautions were
taken as far as possible to protect
residents from harm. Between and
10 o'clock the soldiers mutinied, set
fire to number of buildings, and then
began looting from house to house.
They were Joined by the rabble.
Shops and banks in all the impor.
tant streets were looted, and some
of them were wrecked.
No fewer than IA fires were raging
simultaneously in various parts of the
city. The soldiers broke into the Pie
Yang mint, which was set on fire.
Machinery, to the value of many thou
sands of dollars, was destroyed. The
looters entered the silver stores,
wrecking off the iron shutters and
even making holes in the walls. The
mint was looted of everything port
able and the ground was strewn with
empty cartridge clips and cases.
The German consul dispatched a
guard to protect German residents in
the city, composed chiefly of the en-
gineering staff of the Tien Tsin-Fu-
kow railway. A German doctor,
named Schreeter, who entered the
city to assist German friends, was
shot dead by footing soldiers. For
eigners generally, however, were not
nlolested. A company of the Somerset
regiment was sent to the British sta
ton at midnight to protect the railway
property.