HELD BY BANDITS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 249, 21 October 1933, Page 7

HELD BY BANDITS.

NEW ZEALAND WOMAN THRILLING STORY RETOLD. SAW VISION OF ANGELS. Some years ago meagre accounts of the capture of an English missionary by bandits in China were cabled out to New Zealand. The missionary was a New Zealandcr, Miss Blanche Tobin, who was more than six weeks in the grip of a bloodthirsty gang. On Tuesday night she told the Diocesan Synod the story of her experience, states the "Christchurch Times." Miss Tobin said she was travelling with another missionary up a river which she had beep led to believe was perfectly safe. The bandits heard of the journey and lay in wait, capturing Miss Tobin and her companion as well as two Chinese jjirls belonging to the boat. Miss Tobin's companion was soon released, as it was considered that she had not the strength to keep up the pace set on the march. She was left to arrange ransom for Miss Tobin, the bandits considering that they could ask as much for one white prisoner as for two, and one would be easier to look after. "After a day and a night of travelling, we reached the bandit chief and I had to bargain as to what I was worth," continued Miss Tobin. "I said £10, but we finally agreed upon £600, although I could not see how the money was to be paid." It was not possible for the Missionary Society to pay the money, as for it to do so would endanger the lives of other missionaries. Any bad people wanting money might say: "Let's catch a missionary." Miss Tobin said she could not get the money herself and she did not see how friends in New Zealand could pay it, as the <nly means would ba through

the Missionary Society. She had hoped for rescue by Chinese soldiers, not knowing that the soldiers dared not attack as they feared the bandits would kill her and fly. Bandits' Cruelty. That particular band had taken more than a hundred Chinese prisoners in a year. Some had been ransomed and some put to death. They captured a woman and her baby, knocking out the baby's brains on a stone because they found it a nuisance. They pricked a woman with a knife to hurry her along on the march. An artery was severed and she bled to death. Miss Tobin had not found them so bloodthirsty but she had felt the blows of the chief. Fortunately the stick with which he attacked her was rotten and broke after the first blow.

One of the Chinese girls had disappeared and Miss Tobin waa told she died, but it was never known what happened to her. Miss Tobin said she was on the border of despair when she saw a vision of angels, comforting and reassuring her. She later found that she saw her vision on the same day as her plight became known to the outside world and prayers were offered for her safety. "When one woman feP among thieves, all the Church prayed for her and she was delivered unharmed," added Miss Tobin. "What would happen if prayers were offered for all the missionaries and their assistants in China?" Bishop West-Watson asked where the money came from for her ransom, and Miss Tobin answered that it was collected from the people of the district in which she was captured.