Foochow Mobs Beat Missionaries and Attack Churches and Schools, Dispatches Say

Chinese mobs attacked foreign missions in Foochow on Sunday night, the Associated Press reported on Monday, beating a number of American and British women and two ministers, and dragging several of the victims through the streets. The dispatch called it the worst anti-Christian demonstration in the city’s history and said it was precipitated by northern soldiers incorporated into the Cantonese army.

Churches, schools, hospitals and foreign residences were ransacked. All Catholic churches and schools were attacked, and the Anglican and Methodist hospitals, the Young Men’s Christian Association branch, an Anglican girls’ school and a boys’ blind school were among institutions plundered. The Evening Star said an American warship was rushed from Shanghai and that missionary headquarters in New York were apprehensive.

The New Britain Herald’s headline called it another Boxer uprising, and its Peking dispatch said messages from Foochow suggested agitation akin to the Boxer movement, with a revived story that foreigners were killing Chinese babies.