A CHINESE PATRICTIC CLUB.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11243, 13 October 1898, Page 2

A CHINESE PATRICTIC CLUB.

The English are groat on clubs, but the Chinese can beat them in that line? Since the war with Japan the breaking out of cluba lias taken the form of an'epidemic (says the. North China Herald). Of the more ephemeral organisations the most noted was the Refcrm .Club, which gave umbrage to the Government and hastened its own death.by demanding a free constitution and.an elective Parliament. Another formed about,the same time still exists .under the curious title of ;a "School, for Shame.'!, Us prime object .is to excite a proper state of feeling in view of China's humiliation at the hands of her neighbours, beginning; with the islanders on the east. A more formidable society is now. looming on the verge of the future. It bear.'i tho name of "Pao-kuo-hui," or Patriotic Association. The account of its origin, as given by one of its members, is as follows:—A squad of German soldiers having made their way to Kaomi, a town adjacent to Kiao-chau, some of them entered Hue Temple, of Confucius, broko off ah arm of. tho sage, and carried it away as a trophy destined to figure in a Berlin Museum. This was more than Chinese pride could stand. The story wag industriously circulated among the scholarsof the Empire assembled for the triennial metropolitan examinations. Rushing together, like tho silversmiths of. iEphesus, they announced that their religion was in danger, not from missionaries, but from tho vandalism of German soldiers. The greased cartridges which lighted the fires of the great mutiny in India because they were supposed to be e'esignod to break down the. native castes were not quicker in arousing popular indignation than this broken arm of Confucius. A petition! to the Throne was drawn up ; n which the signers pledged their lives, fortunes, and saored honour to aid in sweeping the country of its foes. The next step was to organise, and this was done by the adoption of a ebustitution consisting of 30 articles and 25 bylaws. The portentous document, howeyer, says nothing, of tho broken arm of Confucius, who might-now very'properly Wear the famous gown -I hat has one. sleeve shorter than the other, but begins by saying:—"This'patriotic club :is formad for,.the defence of the Empire, in view of the fact that our territory is daily sliced away, the powers of the Government daily circumscribed, and the people more and more oppressed (by whom?)." In the second article it cites a deoree issued shortly after the lata wav, which calls on the nation to prepare itself to avenge tl>« past and to safeguard the future: using a Chinese classic phrase whicn might have been bo.-rowed from Virgil's vanquished bull which-lay on stony ground and chewed the- cud of bitterness, until able to humble his adves-eary. The three things to be defended are '"the territory, the people, and the religion." One of the measures proposed was to institute in all meetings of the ceutial at'd affiliated clubs a system of preaching, confessedly borrowed from the West. On this subject a by-law prescribes that the texts for discourse shall be confined to " themes relating to the preservation of the'State^ the religion, the people, aud the race.' The "race" referred to is not the whole human race, but that portion of the yellow raoo, or that branch of it, which flourishes on the mainland. The thing to be sought with all diligence is to preserve it from contamination by intermixture with races of a lighter shade. This branch of the subject is certain to offer unlimited scope for vituperative eloquence Jr the Chou Han type. Efforts are- to be made to extend these clubs to every town and hamlet- in the Empire. Any wind is better than a dead calm ; but the extension of these clubs is much more likely to make a lively time for missionaries "and^ their converts than it is to check the zeal of soldiers in Quest of objwti '•>f antiquarian interest. ' .;: .. ..,.