PART IV. 



AFFILIATION OF NEW MEMBERS. 

 SECTION I. 



THE CATECHISM. 



New members for the Heaven and Earth-society are got. in several ways. If the initiated 

 are not able to seduce the people to enter the league by an enumeration of the griefs against 

 the Tartar sway and, in this way, excite them to throw off the dominion of the hated usurp- 

 ers, recourse is had to threats. A person may find some day in his house a chit of paper, 

 stamped with the seal of the society, by which he is ordered to betake himself, at a certain hour, 

 to such and such a place; nnder menace that if he dares to diso!5ey, or breathe a word of it 

 to the authorities, he and his w hole family willbe murdered, and his house or possessions burned 

 down. Sometirnes, too, he is stopped on the róad by an unknown who gives him a similar 

 order. 



Violence is also used. One of the affiliated insults a person on the road by giving him aslap 

 on his face. Of course the insulted pursues the offender, who leads him, in this way, to an 

 isolated spot or suburb.. -Here, at last, he stands at bay, but the scuffle has scarcely begun when, 

 on a signal or whistle given by the initiated, several brethern appear who knock the man 

 down. The vicfcim is then thrown into a bag, and carried away to the place where lodge is held. 



Those who have got the mysterious warning to the appointed rendezvous are, in the mean- 

 time, trembling for their life, for already they doubt the fate which is awaiting them, and they 

 know, too, that it would be useless to try to escape it; as the justice of the feared society is 

 reien tless and speedy. 



So, on the appointed day, the warned goes to the place Avhich is indicated to him. He 



does not, however, see anybody there, as the affiliated are hielden amongsfc trees or behind 



old walls to see that he is not foliowed by either policemen or soldiers. 



Already the man begins to breathe more freely and thinks that all danger has 'passed, 



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