APPENDIX  D  425
One  man  was  caught  and  taken  to  the  R.C.  premises  to  be
tortured.  The  Mandarin  succeeded  in  getting  him  liberated.
Attempts  were  then  made  to  catch  his  son,  who  escaped  and
fled  to  this  city,  arriving  here  by  steam  launch  with  District
Magistrate  and  Tong-ling  at  six  o’clock.  He  says  some  of  the
armed  bands  have  dispersed,  others  have  come,  and  they  reside
principally  in  the  R.C.  compound.
The  Roman  Catholic  army  is  composed  of  bands  of  men,
each  under  a  leader,  and  each  band  has  a  distinctive  badge.
The  Commander  in  Chief  is  the  native  Roman  Catholic  priest,
Nyun,  and  the  principal  leaders  are  :  (Eleven  names  given).
Several  of  these  are  well-known  robber  chiefs  ;  at  least  two
of  them  are  only  recently  liberated  from  prison.

THE  CATHOLIC  VERSION
After  the  disturbance  over  the  chestnuts,  in  which  the  Protestants ­
  summoned  the  brigands  in  order  to  pillage  a  Catholic’s
house  and  deliver  from  jail  by  force  of  arms  a  criminal  arrested
by  the  Magistrate,  the  parties  interested  were  extremely  excited,
it  had  only  need  of  another  incident  to  cause  an  explosion,  and
the  Protestants  were  soon  to  furnish  it.
At  Haimen  the  Catholic  Mission  owns  a  piece  of  land  on
the  river  front  which  surrounds  the  Protestant  church.  Houses
are  being  built  there  for  the  support  of  our  charitable  institutes.
One  of  these  houses  being  built  behind  the  Protestant  church,  it
was  now  necessary  to  build  a  wall  around  it  as  it  was  to  serve
as  a  warehouse.  In  order  to  avoid  all  occasion  of  fresh  discord
the  wall  was  to  be  built  four  feet  from  the  church,  but  when  the
masons  came  to  commence  the  work  they  were  stopped  by  the
Protestant  church  master,  Ko  Siao-tsen,  and  his  band,  who,  ready
fo  fight,  claimed  the  property  as  theirs.
Instead  of  resisting  violence  by  violence  we  preferred  to  bring
the  case  before  the  local  authorities.  Civil  and  Military  Mandarins
were  immediately  appointed  by  the  Prefect  of  Tai-tcheou-fou,
Mr.  Tchang,  to  examine  the  case.  Their  first  act  was  to  demand
the  titles  of  ownership  from  the  Protestants.  Now,  the  latter
have  none  to  give,  no,  not  even  for  their  church,  which  stands
°n  a  site  formerly  used  as  a  place  of  capital  punishment,  and  was
partly  occupied  by  them,  partly  given  to  them  by  a  famous
brigand  named  Tchang.  They  answered,  however,  first  saying
that  the  deeds  were  at  Ningpo  ;  the  second  time  they  said  they
were  at  Shanghai  ;  and  the  third  time  they  showed  a  false  paper
which  they  had  manufactured  after  taking  the  measurement  of
their  church’s  land.