The Anti-Missionary Riots in China.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 286, 4 December 1886, Page 4

The Anti-Missionary Riots in China.

Tue truth about the origin of the recent anti missionary riots in Chung Xi ng, on the Yangtsze River in China, has at length been discovered. Many buildings were destroyed and native Christians murdered, and the missionaries were forced to fly for their lives. It will be remembered that a telegram was received in Paris from the Ron; in Catholic Bishop of the province a leging that the indiccroet oonduct of the Protestant missionaries was the cause of the outbreak. This appears now to be wholly incorrect. A Komac Catholic cathedral has lately been built in the city in a most prominent position, as almost all the Roman Catholic edifices in China are. When on the roof the bishop persisted, in spite ot repeated and urgent protests and warnings of the Governor and other local authorities, in using yellow tiles for the purpose. Now yellow is a colour sacrod in China to the Emperor, and yellow tilea are used in the Imperial palaces in Pekin. The result was that popular annoyance, which wa3 smonldering for a loag time, broke out during tho presence in the city at a large number of young men at one of the provincial examinations. The mob Boon reduced the cathedral to a heap of ruins, and the bishop's house and other missionary residences shared the same fate. The riote a ■vonfc on to attack Europeans, including Protestant missionaries, who had nothiug to do with the offending edifice,