MORE OUTRAGES IN CHINA.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11086, 3 October 1901, Page 5

MORE OUTRAGES IN CHINA.

A MISSION STATION BURNED.

United Prese Association—By Electrio : Telegraph—Copyright. (Received October 2nd, 9 a.m.) HONG KONG, October L A number of Chinese rebels belonging to the Secret Society known as the "Triad," burnsd the Basel Missionary's Society's stations at Li-hangtong, in the province of Kwang TmigThe missionaries escaped.

The Basel Mnssionaiy Society, which was established in China in 1847, is nuroericallv the strongest organisation of the kind in the Kwang-Tung province. According to an official return, compiled up to ~ay, 1900, it possessed at that date thirteen stations, and fifty-four out stations, scattered throughout the provinces. The number of missionaries engaged in the work was twenty-six— of whom sixteen had their wives with them —and there were 149 native helpers, both male and female. Connected with the Mission- were 3809 communicants, and 5£50 adherents, while seventy schools, with a total of 1421 scholars, were carried on under its auspices. In connection with this attack on the missionaries, if is worthy of note that the China Inland Mission carried on its work throughout the Empire for thirty-three years without the life of a single missionary being lost through violence or accident. The first to suffer death was Mr Fleming, who was murdered in November, 1898, in-the province of Kuei-chau. During tha recent crisis, however, there was a sad loss of life among the missionaries at the hands of Chinese fanatics. No less than 127 adults., and fortyfour children are known to nave been killed among the Protestant Missionary Societies. The China Inland Mission alone lost fiftytwo adults and sixteen children. The massacre of missionaries was greatest in the province of Shan-si, where, of the eighty-nine missionaries of the China- Inland Mission in that province at the time, forty-one areknown to have been murdered, while six more, who are missing, probably shared a similar fate. To these must be added many native Christians connected with the missions, whose number will probably never be known.

The Chinese secret societies are the most notorious of the methods adopted by, the people to maintain democratic righ-ta as against the aggressions of despotism. Some of them aim at revolution, as the great Triad' Society (Heaven, Earth, and Man), which seeks more "light" (ming). It is not .easy to get at the real ob]«cta or tbs actual working of this and other "secret' , societies. They are proscribed by Government, and eecreey is maintained even as to membership. Established in 1674, the Triad Society was in its origin a, purely political society, but, according to the author of "China in Transformation, it has in recent times become the refuge for doubtful characters, who use the organisation for their own purposes, lawless and otherwise, for prosecuting vendetta warfare, and so forth. Like all secret societies, in China, and elsewhere, as the reason for its existence disappears, it boa become more and more degraded..