Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 9, 1891
Mr. Denby to Mr. Blaine.
Peking, May 25, 1891. (Received July 2.)
Sir: I have the honor to inclose two cuttings from the North China News of the 18th instant, giving accounts of the late riots at Wuhu. At the present writing quiet seems to prevail there.
I have, etc.,
The riot at Wuhu. From a French missionary.
In order to prevent misconception from incomplete and erroneous reports, I beg to give you the following particulars with regard to the recent outrage in Wuhu, which has been furnished by Fathers Havret and Debrix, just arrived by the Tehhsing.
For the last three years the Catholic missionaries had been living peacefully in that city, which was their center for the management of the province of Nganhui. Neither themselves nor their Christians had ever had any difficulty with the people, and nothing whatever had happened that could make us foresee the last sudden and unprovoked outrage.
On the evening of Sunday, the 10th of May, two Christian ladies employed by the mission had gone out of their establishment and were crossing one of the streets of the quarter south of the canal, not far from the taotai’s yamên, when they were suddenly set upon, brutally arrested, and dragged to the office of the local police officer. They were accused of having bewitched two children by the use of a drug; and in proof of the charge two children 5 and 7 years old were brought forward, who, it was said, had been their victims.
The police officer was glad of an occasion of showing his zeal in favor of the accusers, [Page 397] and in the night he had the two ladies transferred to the tribunal of the chehsien.
The English consul, Mr. Ford, applied to by the missionaries, requested the taotai to interfere, but he contented himself with saying that it was a serious affair which he must let take its course.
The mob, in spite of the great distance, had followed the prisoners to the chehsien’s office and was waiting for that magistrate’s verdict.
The chehsien about midnight had both parties brought to his tribunal. After a summary examination, in which the two ladies gave the most formal denial to the charge of having drugged the children, the chehsien gave a provisory verdict, viz, that “the prisoners would be set at liberty as soon as the use of speech was restored to the children,” for it would seem that the magical power of those poor girls had the effect of making the two witnesses dumb.
In the course of Monday the children had no patience to obey any longer the orders they had received; they spoke and thus relieved the chehsien from his engagement. About 2 p.m. he came himself to congratulate the Catholic missionaries and announce the release of the ladies, who, in fact, returned home about 4 p.m.
It was perfectly clear that it had been a scheme prepared beforehand. As early as the evening of Sunday the customs authorities were informed that sinister rumors were spread in the taotai’s quarter, and that there was a plot to make a rush against the European quarter. They therefore sent word to the missionaries of the danger and invited them on the first sign to repair to the offices of the customs, from thence to be taken on board a steamer which was then loading rice in the river.
In spite, however, of these well-founded rumors, the whole of Monday and the morning of Tuesday passed without any outbreak. Nothing forboded the storm at hand, and the calumnies circulated in the teahouses and other public establishments were no signs of the riot that was preparing underhand.
On Tuesday, then, at 1 p.m., an unknown woman presented herself at the mission, followed by some 20 ill-looking fellows. Screaming out violently she claimed her child, whom the missionaries had stolen, as they had done in the case of two others whose corpses were within the walls of the Catholic establishment.
This was the signal for a new attack. This the missionaries understood at once, and they went to beg Mr. Ford to appeal to the conscience of Chang Taotai, after which they came home to set in order some urgent affairs.
In the meantime the mob was increasing in numbers, and they began to surround the walls. About 3 p.m., on the request of the missionaries, a military officer had come to the rescue and had taken hold of one of the assailants who was just trying to break open a door with a stone. At the same time the chehsien, also applied to by the missionaries, made his way with great difficulty through the mob and stood before the main entrance, where he harangued the people, who were already uttering out hostile cries. These magistrates both declared they would be trampled to death rather than abandon their post. In fact, they remained to the last.
The wild clamor, however, was fast increasing, approaching nearer and nearer. About 4 p.m. the chehsien informed the missionaries that he felt unable to restrain the mob; the English consul ought to appeal again to the taotai.
Mr. Ford, on being applied to, answered that the taotai knew everything. But no one came, and such is the part taken by the first Chinese magistrate in defense of the Catholic Mission.
At 5 p.m. there began to fall stones and brickbats within the walls. The chehsien sent to the missionaries, beseeching them to take refuge in the English consulate, only separated from them by a narrow street; but they refused, unwilling as they were to compromise a family as innocent as themselves.
At last, at 5:50 p.m., one of the side doors of the facade gave way. The three European missionaries, who were still in the establishment, thought it was time to slip out by a back door. On their way they were insulted in the coarsest language, the qualification of kuaitse (children thieves) being predominant.
On board the hulk of the T’ai-ku Company they were most graciously received by Mr. Weatherstone, but, unwilling further to compromise a company which had already had so much to suffer from Chinese brigands, they went into a small boat, which took them to Chingkiang.
Before leaving the hulk the missionaries witnessed the burning of all the buildings of their establishment. Two telegrams for Shanghai intrusted on that evening to Mr. Weatherstone, together with another handed to the agent on the following morning, were refused, on the plea that the taotai had forbidden sending any dispatch from the Catholic missionaries.
On their arrival at Chingkiang on Thursday the missionaries heard that the fire of Tuesday had been followed by a pillage as complete as shameful, without any interference of the Chinese authorities.
The doctor of the Protestant Mission, who came down with Fathers Havret and Debrix, assured them that the tombs of two missionaries had been broken open.