"FISTS OF RIGHTEOUS HARMONY"
The people of China have suffered much at the hands of foreigners, and, in their ignorance of everything beyond their own line of vision, imagine many grievances that really do not exist. Once China was the foremost nation of the earth in arts, literature, commerce, and all that goes to the making of what we call civilization. She invented, used, and forgot a thousand things that the Western world is only now discovering. She was sufficient unto herself, and desired only to be let alone.
But the Western nations would not let her alone. They insisted upon forcing their unwelcome trade into the country; and, moreover, upon conducting it themselves, according to their own ideas. When she resisted their demands they took possession of her seaports, destroyed her forts and war-ships, placed their own steamers, protected by gun-boats, on her rivers, monopolized her coasting trade, and even appropriated as their own, large slices of her territory.
Thus, while England holds the island of Hong-Kong, together with two hundred square miles of the opposite mainland, Shanghai, and Wei-hai-Wei, besides controlling the trade of the great Yang-tse Valley, Russia, on the north, has seized Manchuria, Germany occupies the province of Shan-tung, Portugal has for three hundred years been established at Macao, and France, the chief aggressor, already in possession of Anam and Tonquin, is making insidious but certain progress northward through Yunan, with covetous eyes cast in the direction of Canton, where she already has gained a foothold. Japan owns the great Chinese island of Formosa, and only awaits a favorable opportunity for seizing the opposite mainland province of Fu-Kien, while even Italy has laid claim to a Chinese port and "sphere of influence."
All these foreign nations, together with Americans and Belgians, are building, or are proposing to build, railways in China, and all of them, with the further additions of Canada and Sweden, are overrunning the bewildered country with missionaries of clashing denominations, each one of which teaches that it only is right, while all the others are wrong. Some of these foreign teachers even go so far as to interfere with local governments, taking upon themselves the office of magistrate, administering the laws according to their own interpretation, and always in favor of their own converts, and at the same time demanding to be accorded all outward forms of respect due only to mandarins.
On the other hand, the great mass of Chinese, groping in the darkness of the Middle Ages, burdened by densest ignorance, steeped in superstition, robbed by their rulers to the extreme of poverty, and forced to unceasing toil from long before daylight until long after dark every day of the week throughout every year of their joyless lives, are taught by their priests, and by others of their own race to whom they look for guidance, that all their sorrows, including floods, famines, and plagues, are caused by the foreigners who are spreading over their country with the ultimate intention of seizing it and subjecting its people to their own barbarous customs. They are told that these same foreigners sweep the rain-clouds from one portion of the sky to cause droughts, and gather them at another to produce devastating floods, and that they poison wells to bring on plagues. They are made to believe that the "foreign devils" collect Chinese children in asylums, homes, and hospitals for the sole purpose of extracting their eyes, to be used in enchantments; that every railway-sleeper, and the foundations of every Christian edifice, are laid upon living human bodies; and a thousand other tales, equally monstrous but equally terrifying.
To remedy these evils the people are invited to form themselves into associations, and thus gain strength for the destruction of the hated foreign devils, or at least to drive them back into the sea, whence they came. For the benefit of those who can read, pamphlets setting forth these views are written, printed by the million, and distributed throughout the land; while the minds of the more ignorant are inflamed by pictured posters illustrating the horrors perpetrated by foreigners, and posted broadcast in every direction.
To these invitations a Chinese readily responds; for there is nothing in which he more greatly delights than to belong to an association of any kind or for any purpose. Thus societies for the exclusion of foreigners have sprung up like mushrooms, especially in those coast provinces where foreign influences are most noticeable; and strongest of them all is the great I-Ho-Chuan, or "Fists of Righteous Harmony" Society, sometimes called "The Great Sword Society," but known to the world at large as "Boxers," a name first used by the missionary correspondent of a foreign journal. The motto of this society, as borne on its banners, is, "Protect the empire! Exterminate foreigners!"
During the initiation of its members they fall into trances, and believe that, while in this state, the spirits of departed heroes enter their bodies. After that they are pronounced invulnerable to sword or bullet, and are declared to be possessed of magic charms that no enemy may withstand.
In 1898 the Boxer movement was checked by the sudden declaration of China's young emperor, Kuang Hsu, in favor of sweeping reforms based upon Western ideas. These he proceeded to carry out with unsuspected energy, deposing corrupt officials in all parts of the empire, and replacing them with others who had been educated abroad. He issued edicts intended to revolutionize the army, the navy, the time-honored but senseless methods of literary examination, and the manner of collecting taxes, which, if obeyed, would place his people upon the upward path of progress so recently and so successfully trodden by Japan. There is no doubt that the Emperor was sincere in his avowed determination to lift his distressed country from the depths to which it was sunk; and had he remained in power the awful Boxer uprising of two years later never would have taken place. But his enemies were too strong; and, after a few months of praiseworthy effort, the young reformer was overthrown by a powerful palace clique, headed by his great aunt, the Empress Dowager, and composed of the high officials whom he had removed from office. They forced him to sign a decree announcing his own abdication of the throne, and again the Empress Dowager, China's worst enemy, assumed the reins of power.
At once all reform decrees were repealed, the old order of things was restored, and hatred of foreigners was preached more loudly and more bitterly than ever. A new life was infused into the Boxer movement, which from that moment spread like wildfire over the northern provinces, until in the summer of 1900 it reached its height. During that dreadful summer mission stations everywhere were looted and destroyed, while their unfortunate occupants were driven out to be killed or cast into loathsome prisons, from which death was their only release. Christian converts were massacred by scores and hundreds, railroad property was destroyed, and railroad employés suffered the fate of missionaries. A rumor to the effect that all foreigners, including members of legations, had been driven from Pekin, was generally believed; as was another, stating that every foreign resident of Tien-Tsin had been killed. Above all, it was understood that the Empress Dowager was in full sympathy with the movement to rid her kingdom of foreigners, and would render every assistance in her power to those engaged in the effort.
Such was the condition of affairs in north China when, in the early summer of 1900, the young American, Rob Hinckley, on a peaceful mission to Pekin, suddenly found himself deserted and alone in the presence of a mob of crazed fanatics, intent upon taking his life. Our lad did not know why they wished to kill him; for, since leaving the Yang-tse River, he had found an ever-increasing difficulty in comprehending the dialect spoken by the common people, until at length it had become wholly incomprehensible. Thus he knew almost nothing of the Boxer movement, nor of the awful state of affairs existing in the country between him and Pekin.
He, however, instantly recognized the danger of his present position, and, clapping spurs to the jaded pony he was riding, he dashed away in the direction of the nearest city gate, with the mob in full cry at his heels. The distance was short, and Rob was within fifty feet of the outer gate, with a good lead of his pursuers, when all at once it occurred to him that he was about to jump from the frying-pan into the fire, since once within the city walls his enemies could close all exits and hunt him down at their leisure. With this he pulled his pony so sharply to one side that the animal, already exhausted to the point of dropping, stumbled and fell, flinging Rob to earth over his head. As the lad scrambled to his feet he was amazed to hear in English a shout of—
"Keep on to the gate! It's your only chance!"
Although he could see no one in that direction, the voice seemed to come from the gateway itself; and, as his madly yelling pursuers were now close upon him, Rob accepted the advice so strangely given and darted forward on his original course.
