Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1900 — KILLED WHILE FEASTING. [ARTICLE]

KILLED WHILE FEASTING.

Chinese Viceroy Invites 2,000 Boxers to a Banquet and Massacres Them. An intercepted letter written by the viceroy at Pao-Ting-Fu, wao commanded at Tien-tsin during the fighting there, says that the taotai of the city of TsangChow, on the canal, invited 2,000 Boxers to a least, and that while the Boxers Were eating and their weapons were stacked the imperial soldiers, by his orders, fell upon them and slaughtered all of them. The viceroy complains that the Boxers are overrunning the country southwest of Tien-tsin, particularly the cities on the grand canal, defying the officials, who at first countenanced them, and looting and killing the enemies of their organization and fighting the imperial troops. The gatescof Pao-Ting-Fu are kept closed and the people inside are suffering, the Boxers practically besieging the place. There is much recrimination between the foreigners besieged in Pekin and the members of the relieving force. Officers say that the besieged scut out alarmist reports and that the condition of the foreigners Was never one of such extremities as the official dispatches represented. The foreigners, they assert, could have resisted indefinitely. The besieged accuse the general of timidity and of exaggerating the Chinese opposition. They think a much smaller army might have made the march and relieved them much sooner. The looting of Pekin proceeds industriously and openly. The officers of every nation except the Americans ignore the repressive order, and all the allies ridicule the Americans for their abstention.