The Chinese in Shantung have a strange tale to tell of the murder of those German missionaries. They say the outrage had its origin in the kidnapping of a woman by an employee in a certain Chinese yamên. She had influential connexions, who promptly demanded her restitution. The kidnapper had the ear of the magistrate, who, turning a deaf ear to his petitioners, or professing to know nothing about the matter, took no action. The woman's relations then devoted their energy to bringing ruin upon the magistrate; and after long consultations decided that the surest and quickest method of doing so would be by killing the two local missionaries. This, they knew, would infallibly be followed by a demand from the foreign Government concerned for the magistrate's degradation and punishment. They had no grudge whatever against the missionaries, and merely regarded their slaughter as a simple means to a much-desired end. They carried out their plan with complete success, and the magistrate's ruin was the immediate result; but a further consequence, unforeseen by the murderers, was that "His Majesty the Emperor of China, being desirous of promoting an increase of German power and influence in the Far East," leased to His Majesty the German Emperor the territory of Kiaochou. Needless to say, an increase of the power and influence of any great European Power in the eastern hemisphere was, very naturally, the last thing to be desired by the Chinese Emperor and his people. It seems a pity that modern civilised States have not yet devised some means of putting an end to the ignoble warfare that is continually waged by the language of diplomacy against the language of simple truth.
The reader may be interested in some illustrations of the manner in which the Chinese official chronicler arranges, in chronological order, his statements of conspicuous local events. The following lists of occurrences with their dates (which are merely selections from the available material) are translated direct from the Chinese Annals of Weihaiwei, Wên-têng, Jung-ch'êng, and Ning-hai. A few of the meteorological and astronomical details are of some interest, if their meaning is not always obvious. With regard to the comets, I have made no attempt at exact verification, though the comet of 1682 was evidently Halley's, which is occupying a good deal of public and scientific attention at the present time. That of 1741 may have been either Olbers's or Pons's, and that of 1801 was perhaps Stephan's. But these are points which are best left to the man of science. The Chinese dates are in all cases converted into the corresponding dates of the Christian era.
Han Dynasty.
40 B.C. A singularly successful year in the wild-silk industry, owing to the abundance of silk produced by the silk-worms at Mou-p'ing Shan.
Chin Dynasty.
353 A.D. (about January). The planet Venus crossed the orbit (?) of the planet Mars and passed over to the west. [This appears to be unintelligible.]
386 (about July). The planet Jupiter was seen in the daytime in the west.
T'ang Dynasty.
841. In the autumn, hailstorms destroyed houses and ruined crops.
Sung Dynasty.