Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/332

On the face of it, the issue in T'ientsin was the question of the bewitching and kidnapping of children, some of whom were supposed to have been sold to the Roman Catholic orphanage, complicated with the monstrous allegation that the eyes and hearts torn from children were used in making medicines for such bewitching. Throughout the month of June, 1870, great excitement had been caused by the report that children were being kidnapped through sorcery. One of the men arrested on this charge, Wu Lan-chen, asserted in his testimony that the medicine he used came from a certain Wang San of the French Church. "From this the people of T'ientsin and the members of the church frequently came to blows. The Commissioner of Trade of the Three Ports, T'sung Hou, invited the French Consul, Fontanier, to come to his yamen and have the accused confronted. At this time serious rumours arose on all sides and the hearts of the people were greatly stirred. Fontanier in the yamen of T'sung Hou drew a revolver, and T'sung Hou hastily escaped. Fontanier went out in a rage and, meeting the magistrate of T'ientsin, Liu Ch'ieh, again used his revolver, wounding a servant. On witnessing this, the T'ientsin populace murdered Fontanier, burned churches in several places, and those that perished, foreigners and natives of that place who followed the religion, numbered several tens. These things happened on the 23d of the Fifth Moon [June 21]."^[1] This is slightly different from the account given in the official report of Tsêng Kuo-fan on July 21, according to which the prefect and magistrate had gone to the church to examine Wang San, and the consul there drew his revolver ^[2]

1. The account given in the Nienp'u, XII, 3a, and b.
2. and 1869 in evidence. The French chargé constantly insisted throughout the negotiations on the culpability of the magistrate and prefect of T'ientsin for having failed to keep order when danger was known to threaten.