DRIVEN FROM CHINA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 49, 22 February 1912, Page 5

DRIVEN FROM CHINA.

ARRIVAL OF MISSIONARIES IN SYDNEY.

MISCHIEF OF SECRET SOCIETIES

| The aggression of the robbers in the province of Szechuan was responsible i for the sudden removal of Rev. H. I. Houden and his wife and children from the city of Anshien, where Mr Houden was stationed as missionary, under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society. They were passengers by the Empire at Sydney last week. The mandarin was obliged to fly shortly after he begged Mr Houden to leave. The banditti came along, and looted the public buildings, and opened the prisons, find business ;lje, came paralysed. “And that is ;a pty tern,” said Mr Houden, ‘‘Of .yffiat yi; going on in hundreds of tpwns -in China. ' • •• V ,r :;| ■ “The mischief is not dope by the rebels, but by brigands and septet societies.- A friend of mine,.Ajr/iJLyA.: Whiteside/ received a blow' bP vtjjo head,' and when' the c'strate inquired about it and found,put who;were the instigators .of‘'ihp'-mis-chief, he dropped the ■ subject, l , ber cause he was afraid of his ovpn fife, the mischief having been , done" by members of secret societies, y •« v'l “We were ordered from the-city by the rnandarin. ” proceeded Mr Efouden, and the Consul ordered us frdin Chongking. On the way down, pur two boats were stopped three times by the revolutionaries who suspected that we-might have some Chinese officials aboard. The next we hoisted' a Union Jack of our own manufacture, and got through in safety ,to lehchang. The Consul there is friendly to the missionaries, and before we left he advised the ladies to quit the place, and counselled the men to prepare to resist attack.” Most of the missionaries in Szechuan had been sent down to the coast, but the Bishop of Western China, according to latest accounts, was hoping to remain. , Statement by Mrs Houden. Mrs Houden also had something •’ say about her stay in China for six years. “We are on furlough twelve months earlier than was intended,” she said. “About the middle of October Mr Houden sent me to Mienchow, because things were looking rather ugly. The following Sunday night he was asked to leave, because the mandarin expected the robbers any night! Mr Houden left on the following Monday morning, and the place was attacked the same night. The mandarin fled the following morning, after making a brave stand. The Yamen was burnt, the post office was attacked, and the pawnbroker’s shop was also attacked and pillaged. Our own house did not escape attention, and a great deal of damage was done. “In our own city of Anshien we have the local Boxers, more or less active, and they take advantage of the disturbed state of the country. The re volutionaries do not work any mischief of this kind, as they respect foreigners. The Boxers are anti-foreign and anti-church. Our station was well on towards Thibet. There are only two stations between us and the Thibetan border. The people also left these places, owing to the danger from Boxer attack. If the foreigners were to be attacked it would cause great trouble in China, as the authorities would bo called upon to pay a heavy indemnity. “The mandarin was a Mohammedan, and we wore on very friendly terms with him. He was anxious that nothing should happen to us. We left Mienchow on November 4th, and readied Shanghai on December 10th. We were stuck in the Yangtse for three days. While it took us a month to come down, it takes two months to go up. “Both my two little ones here,” Mrs Houden went on, “were born in China. One is close upon three years old, and the other, one. We have to lie our own doctor and everything else. We are supplied with medicine chests, and we have the medical textbooks. There is a dispensary for the natives, of course. “It is six years since I have been at a railway station. Our intention is to stop in Melbourne for about 12 months, and then go to England, where Mr Houden’s people reside. Wo have IS months’ furlough.”