MORE ABOUT CHINA.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 46, 22 August 1895, Page 4

MORE ABOUT CHINA.

THE AUTHORS OF THE KUCHENG MASSACRE. At the mission meeting held in the Conrtenay-place Congregational Churoh on Tuesday by the Bey. Mr. and Mrs. Parker, of Mongolia, Mr. Parker was asked whether he could enlighten his audience, a large one, regarding the recent Kuoheng massacre. He replied that the Vegetarians were Buddhists, and their tenets were abstinence from eating meat, smoking tobacco and opium, and drinking wine, all of whioh (hey observed F very striotly— excepting as regards meat, which they ate whenever they could get * it. The society waß really revolutionary, I and its branches extended throughout < China. That pioneer missionary James i Gilmour was onco a member of this > dread secret society. Finding it hard to reach tha Chinese with the Gospel, and ! hearing of the Vegetarians, which in his i simplicity he thongbt to be a really use- . fnl and helpful Association, he supposed > that by joining it ho- would, through the . Eociety, be able to preach his own faith > to them. The sooiety on its part, wiien - he beoame a member, was sure it had - found a very influential proselyte, and 1 it was not until a deputation whioh waited upon him revealed by its talk the real . charaoter of the aooiety that Mr. Gilmonr I realised his position, and how misled he - had been by a name. So strong bod the Vegetarians been growing that all the 3 Magistrates of the Empire had strict l injunctions to suppress them by every means. Bat these officials only need them - to apply what is known as the " squeeze "—" — ) threatening to pnnieh only as a means of , extorting money from them. Mr. Parker related an experience wherein the Vegetarians threatened an official and a village, and the . Magistrate, drawing the attention of the 1 mob to the powers of the "foreign bar1 barians"(attbemisßionhoußes), turned their wrath in that direotion, and authorised them 9 to loot and murder. The speaker gave a trans1 lation of notices he had seen on the walla of 3 towns in China calling on "all good people " , to destroy the foreign missionaries because 1 of their " witchcraft and medioal praotioea," 3 the bills quoting cases of eyes and 'hearts being taken ont of ohildren by these ' foreigners to manufacture oil ! Recalling a 9 personal experience during the Chinese rebellion in 1891, Mr. Parker desoribed how * the Magistrate turned the mob from 1 himself to the Boman Catholio Mission | oompound, the result being murder, de1 Btruotion, and loot, and whon the authori- ? ties at Pekin ordered the official to appear and give an acconnt, he evaded the * summons by suicide. " That," said the 1 speaker, "is the way these massacres like Kuoheng arise." , 3 Later on Mr. Parker was asked his opinion 1 upon the Chinese as an ambitious or wandering nation— Waß there any reason to believe | they wonld strike out for other lands P His ' reply was that the Chinese were as übiquitj oub as Scotchmen Go where you would j you wonld find a Chinaman. They were ; very much like what bad been Biid of : Englishmen — a nation of shopkeepers — the 1 trading instinot was a strong national trait s Recent incidents and General Gordon's ex. > perience showed them to be brave, but their 3 present failure in this quality was owing to the oppression of officials and the system of ' " squeeze," which had broken down all oon- ' fidence in their leaders. They had vast natural < wealth within their borders, bnt super"stdtionkeptbaokdevelopment. Mr. Parker's | solution of the Chinese question was that 1 Western ideas should be introduced to break down the superstition that kept baok the opening up of that vast laud, wherein was ample scope not only for an already vast " and growing nation, bnt " even for Australians, too." Mra. Parker also addressed the meeting, giving a description of Chinese life in the southern districts. The missionaries were given a vote of thanks for their interesting addresses, whioh was convoyed to them by the Rev. B. T. Halloweß, who presided. , Mrs. Parker gave an address to women 1 only in the Terrace Congregational fhurch t yesterday afternoon, and in the evening she i and her husband spoke at a orowdeil meeting in St. John's Schoolroom, the Bey. J. Paterson in the chair. Mr. and Mrs. 1 Parker will return to China next month. 3 —