" If
they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.
A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a
child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in
England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able
successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused.
Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and
mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run
away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get
them.
This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and
breadth of Yuen-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to
Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of
Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into
close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people
taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the
very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.
In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my
manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been
greatly reduced.
In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which
it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only
fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of
the Viceroy of Yuen-nan in dealing with the situation.
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