134 



CHINA. 



CHRISTIAN CONVENTION. 



country, some of them holding official posts or 

 working in the arsenals when the war broke out. 

 The American consul-general, T. R. Jernigan, 

 warned Japanese that they must not wear queues 

 or Chinese costume if they desired him to save 

 them from mob violence of judicial punishment. 

 Those who wore Japanese or European dress 

 were maltreated everywhere except in the for- 

 eign concession at Shanghai, and all who could 

 leave the country or take refuge in Shanghai 

 did so. The extra-territorial jurisdiction of 

 China and Japan in each other's territory was 

 annulled by the declaration of war, and not 

 transferred to the United States diplomatic au- 

 thorities, who undertook to watch over the in- 

 terests of the citizens of both countries. The 

 consul-general subsequently, when the European 

 inhabitants of Shanghai feared for their own 

 lives and had organized a volunteer military 

 guard to protect them, begged the Japanese who 

 remained to depart from China, lest their pres- 

 ence should invite an attack upon the European 

 quarter. When the French steamer " Sydney " 

 touched at Kobe, Japan, she was boarded by 

 naval officers, who arrested John Wild, an Ameri- 

 can inventor, a Scotch torpedo expert named 

 Cameron, and Chang Pan Moore, who had been 

 an interpreter for the Chinese legation at Wash- 

 ington. The Japanese political police had ob- 

 tained information tending to prove that the 

 Chinese agent had hired the others to blow up 

 the Japanese navy with dynamite, and lie was 

 kept a prisoner, while they were eventually 

 turned over to the American authorities and re- 

 leased. Two Japanese in Shanghai, against 

 whom warrants were issued as spies, took refuge 

 at the French consulate, and when the Chinese 

 police demanded their surrender the French 

 consul at their request handed them over to the 

 American consul-general. Consul-General Jerni- 

 gan refused to deliver them up on the taotai's 

 demand before consulting the authorities at 

 Washington. There was evidence that they 

 were spies, and not students, as they pretended 

 to be, in the fact that they wore Chinese cloth- 

 ing and were older men than students usually 

 are, and direct incriminating evidence was found, 

 when they were searched at the French con- 

 sulate, consisting of numerous dispatches that 

 had been sent to the Japanese Government, and 

 in drawings of Chinese fortifications sewed in 

 the lining of the jacket of one of them. Secre- 

 tary Gresham informed the consul-general that 

 international law required their surrender. Mean- 

 while Mr. Jernigan had secured a promise that 

 their case should not be finally disposed of until 

 Minister Uenby arrived from the Chinese min- 

 ister. The men were surrendered to the Viceroy 

 Liu Kun Yih, who would not acknowledge that 

 t he promise of Tsungli-Yamen had binding force 

 over him, and it was reported that they were 

 subjected to horrible inquisitorial tortures and 

 then decapitated at Nankin. 



Peace Negotiations. The Pekin Govern- 

 ment and the Viceroy of Pechili found no sup- 

 port in other parts of the country for the war 

 into which they had plunged. Except where 

 the people were directly affected, the farmers, 

 merchants, and tradespeople knew little and 

 cared nothing about the war. They despised 

 the Japanese as a puny and semibarbarous race, 



and were indifferent to the danger that threat- 

 ened the Pekin Government and the Manchu 

 dynasty. There was no patriotic response to 

 calls for troops or money, as there was in Japan, 

 where a loan of 50,000,000 yen was subscribed 

 for twice over, and a great war fund and con- 

 tributions of every kind were given voluntarily 

 by the people of all classes. The Japanese Diet 

 appropriated 150,000,000 yen, and authorized an 

 additional loan of 100,000,000 yen. The Chinese 

 Government increased the likiri duties and raised 

 10,000,000 taels in Europe, and subsequently 

 they invited proposals for a loan of 10,000,000 

 sterling. Li-Hung-Chang continued his efforts 

 to obtain the diplomatic or military intervention 

 of other powers. On Nov. 6, the Chinese Gov- 

 ernment having again asked the Government of 

 the United States to act as intermediary, the 

 American minister at Tokio informed the Mi- 

 kado's minister that China was willing to make 

 peace, and would consent to the independence 

 of Korea and pay a war indemnity equivalent to 

 the expenses that Japan had incurred, the sum 

 to be determined by the arbitration of the Presi- 

 dent of the United States. The Japanese Gov- 

 ernment replied that it would only consider 

 definite proposals emanating direct from the 

 Government at Pekin. Commissioner of Cus- 

 toms Dietering, a European, was dispatched by 

 Li-Hung-Chang to Hiroshima to discuss terms 

 of peace ; but the Japanese Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs refused to receive him, as he had no cre- 

 dentials from the Tsungli-Yamen. 



CHRISTIAN CONVENTION. The Quad- 

 rennial General Convention of the American 

 Christian Connection was held in Haverhill, 

 Mass., in October. The convention represents 

 a body of churches that originated in 1792 and 

 1793 independently in New England, North 

 Carolina, and Kentucky, taking the name of 

 Christian as a protest against sectarian divisions. 

 Rejecting all formulations of creeds and avoid- 

 ing all theological terms, they hold, in language 

 quoted from the Scriptures, that Jesus Christ 

 was the Son of God, in the beginning with God, 

 by whom all things were made, and who is the 

 object of their adoration; and that the Holy 

 Spirit bears the same relation to God as the 

 spirit of man does to man. Their newspaper 

 organ, the " Herald of Gospel Liberty," Dayton, 

 Ohio, is the oldest religious newspaper in the 

 United States. They number 115,000 members. 



The principal subject considered at the con- 

 vention concerned propositions respecting union 

 with the Congregationalists, Free Baptists, and 

 other denominations. The question of alliance 

 or union with the Free Baptists has been agi- 

 tated for several years. That of alliance with 

 the Congregationalists was made vital by the 

 action of the New Jersey Congregational Con- 

 ference in April, 1894, looking toward union 

 with the Christians and Free Baptists (see article 

 COXOREGATIONALISTS), a part of which was the 

 appointment of a committee to attend the New 

 Jersey Christian Conference. This body re- 

 sponded with a proposition for co-operation in 

 Christian labor under the direction of a federal 

 commission appointed by both the Congrega- 

 tionalists and Christians of New Jersey. The 

 Congregational Conference proposed a modifi- 

 cation of this proposition. The subject was 



