DESECRATED GRAVES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 88, 5 July 1927, Page 11

DESECRATED GRAVES

ATROCITIES IN CHINA ANTI-FOREIGN OUTBREAK SHANGHAI, June 29. Isolated reports received from time to time make it doubtful whether any foreign cemetery in the interior of China has not been desecrated—a significant fact in view of the ordinary Chinese reverence for the dead. The latest report is that the Schwekiang “Memorial Cemetery,” containing the remains of foreigners killed at the time of the Boxer rebellion, is a mass of ruins.

After the graves had been broken open, the remains were dug up and scattered about the grounds. The bones were strung up in trees, and the crowd of despoilers, armed with sticks, beat them and made fun of the dead. When ar caretaker attempted to gather the bones, he was driven away at the point of a gun. It appears that the atrocity extended over three days. Twelve graves had been desecrated, but the despoilers left untouched two graves of American ladies who had suffered with the Britons, the soldiers explaining that they had no enmity against the Americans. On the third day, however, unable to restrain their ghoulish passion, the crowd treated the American graves with the same indignity.