the son in the church building by the river, and they do not meet for years.
In addition to these a fifth cause for suspicion lies in the fact that during the fourth and fifth moons of this year there were cases of kidnappers who used medicines to bewitch people, while at the same time the number of deaths at the mission were unusually numerous, and many of the burials took place at night, with two or three corpses in one coffin. On the 6th of the Fifth Moon [June 4], in a burial ground east of the river a coffin containing two bodies was dug up by a dog. Tso Pao-kwei, yuchi of the middle camp of Tientsin city, and others inspected them. The dead all begin to decompose from within, but these had begun to decompose on the outside, their breasts and abdomens were torn open and their entrails exposed. This gave rise to serious rumours. When people hear everywhere at all times the words of inflammatory placards they believe them to be proven; but when these five doubts are gathered together they hate to the utmost. When the kidnappers implicated the church and the people saw the sight in the graveyard ... their rage was uncontrollable. Finally, when the prefect and magistrate went to the mission to examine Wang San and consul Fontanier fired his revolver their frenzy was all the more out of control. It caused a clamor to arise from ten thousand throats at the same time; they made a sudden onslaught and consummated a great riot. Such giddy conceit is surely an abominable thing, but these suspicions are not the result of a single morning and evening.[1]
So far as the preliminary investigations went, therefore, the Roman Catholic Church was completely vindicated. But while these results were being obtained the temper of the foreign ministers underwent a change. Seeing nothing tangible to show for the promises of settlement and demands of punishment, their former tone of mildness now tended towards belligerency. On his coming to Tientsin Tsêng had sent a carefully worded letter to the French chargé of which he writes to Prince K'ung:
- ↑ Translated from a part of Tsêng's general report, Dispatches, XXIX, 36-40a.
