at the mercy of the rebels. The latter, however, were met by a desperate resistance from the young princes, who shot down several of them, and thus alarmed the soldiers. Assistance was promptly at hand, and the rebels were all killed or captured. Immediate measures were taken to suppress the Society, of which it is said that over twenty thousand members were executed, and as many more sent in exile to Ili.
Not one, however, of the numerous secret societies, which from time to time have flourished in China, can compare for a moment either in numbers or organization with the formidable association known as the Heaven and Earth Society, and also as the Triad Society, or Hung League, which dates from the reign of Yung Chêng, and from first to last has had one definite aim,—the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty.
The term "Triad" signifies the harmonious union of heaven (q.d. God), earth, and man; and members of the fraternity communicate to one another the fact of membership by pointing first up to the sky, then down to the ground, and last to their own hearts. The Society was called the Hung League, because all the members adopted Hung as a surname, a word which suggests the idea of a cataclysm. By a series of lucky chances the inner working of this Society became known about fifty years ago, when a
