The True Northerner

EXCITEMENT IN CHINA
Strange Delusion-Foreigners Charged with Circulating a Diabolical Medicine.

From the New York Evening Post

HONG KONG, September 1, 1871.

The present mail will inform you of the "Genii Powder" excitement. Placards have suddenly appeared in the most important localities in Canton province, charging foreigners with having concocted a diabolical medicine, which causes the bowels and feet of the victim to swell up within some twenty-five days after it is taken, unless the patient will consent to enter the Roman Catholic Church. The medicine is said to be circulated in all quarters at foreign expense, through the agency of Buddhist nuns, old women and various sorts of hawkers and peddlers. Persons are induced to partake by the representation that a pestilence is impending, from which immunity can be secured only by a dose of the powder. If, when a swelling begins, they refuse to become Catholic they die, and report has it that some twenty thousand persons have already perished.

Of course, the excitement caused among an ignorant and superstitious people by such a story is by no means trifling. As a consequence, trouble and bloodshed have followed. A poor Chinaman was killed in the streets of Canton by an excited mob on suspicion of dealing in this powder. A woman was killed in the Yamun, and a man was executed by the Viceroy on the same ground.

Sharp dispatches by the Consuls have been followed by proclamations by the Viceroy and Provincial Judge. The latter orders the people to maintain order, under the severest penalties, but at the same time they assume the correctness of the report that such a powder is in circulation. As a reward is offered for any one found engaged in its distribution, and as the official retrospects of the matter do not affirm the falsity of the charges regarding foreigners, the impression remains on the minds of the people that they are actually guilty. It is, therefore, clearly a matter of question whether the harm does not surpass the good.

The origin and design of these placards demand the gravest inquiry. To pass them over as mere ebullitions of ignorance, which cease to do evil after a lull intervenes, is to practice political quackery, of which we may some day be the victims. First of all, be it observed, these placards are a common agency of stirring up a popular commotion, and placards against foreigners have been known ever since the old Hong days of Canton. What distinguishes the present movement is the extent of territory over which it prevails, and the homogeneity of plan indicates extraordinary facilities for attaining a common understanding and concert of action.

Two theories are advanced to explain the movement. By some it is regarded as a part of a plan to overthrow the Tartar dynasty, by embroiling them with foreigners. And it is by no means an ill-chosen agency for that purpose, as I shall point out hereafter. By others it is looked upon as a most ingenious device of the mandarins to implant a deeper dislike of the foreigner in the minds of the common people, and there is an abundance of testimony in favor of this opinion. The manipulations of Chinese state-craft have a special end to accomplish at the present time. The treaties are to be revised, and the inland residence question is to be discussed. The Chinese are bent on refusing that demand. The Earl of Clarendon, moved by the representations of Mr. Burlingame, gave various classes of foreigners a rebuke for not paying more deference to the wishes and prejudices of the people. The Chinese had these papers translated, and took the hint, and the mandarins are now manufacturing a public opinion bitterly hostile to the residence of foreigners inland.

No less than four German missionaries living in inland towns have been driven back to Canton or Hong Kong, while their houses have been looted and destroyed. Since the British Cabinet has ordered that the prejudices of the Chinese should be respected (and which is all right enough in itself), the Chinese have resolved that there shall be an increased multitude of prejudices to be respected. You will, of course, hear that the ostentatious vermillion-tipped proclamations are posted up after the placards, and the placards will be pulled down, and you will be told to infer that all is moving on as before. The inference will by no means be just. The mischief intended will be fully accomplished. A condition of public sentiment will be superinduced which may lie passive and dormant enough when not needed, but which can be utilized hereafter if deemed desirable by the crafty mandarins. Let not the public be deceived by any syren song or mandarin desire for closer relations with the West. We are drifting in the direction of war rather than of peace.