CHINESE TREACHERY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1585, 31 October 1912, Page 4

CHINESE TREACHERY.

Intense excitement was caused In Peking by tho dramatic arrest of the Hopeli generals, who arrived openly from Hankow, and were seized at dead of night (says the Peking correspondent of tho "Daily Telegraph"). Two officers who were the original leaders of last October's outbreak at Wuchang were immediately shot after a drum-head court-martial. The others were sent back in chains to Hankow. It appears that President Yuan-Shih-Kai, who had received urgent secret messages from General Li Yuan Hunj proving tho complicity of these officers in the recent abortive attempts to provoke a second revolution, acted with such extraordinary swiftness that escape was impossible. Tho executions will be construed as a direct challenge to a struggle for power between, the President and the Advisory Council, and may precipitate occurrences of an even stranger character. The seventy Peking newspapers—there are now actually seventy journals there, representing every shade of political opinion—have contained nothing but details of the military executions. These accounts, with their short, trenchant phrasing, have an indescribably tragic note, Biblical in its intensity, there being something curiously devilish about the manner in which General Chang Tseng-hu, the principal victim, whatever his guilt may have been, was trapped and killed.

The Bannerman General, Tnan Chi-kuoi, who was entrusted by President Yuan Shih-Kai with tho arrest and execution, actually dined with hiin in a European hotel and toasted him repeatedly. The dinner being at an end tho victim departed for his lodgings outside tho Chicn-men Gate. Meanwhile, strong bodies of mounted gendarmerie took possession of the Gate and all the approaches. Immediately the carriages neared the fatal spot, General. Timti Chi-kuci, who was in tile vehicle following the victim, leaned out of the window and blew a polieo whistle.

A forest of sabres and bayonets grow up as if bv magic, surrounding. General Chang Tseng-hn, who wns dragged out of his carriage, bound with ropes, and Hung into a mule-cart and conveyed to the Military Court, where the judges were already silting. These officers simply staled that the death of the prisoner had beon decreed, nnd ordered that he should bo shot instantly. No evidence was brought, and no witnesses were examined. General Chang Tseng-hu was examined, then tied to u pillar in the courtyard, and a firing party levelled their rides. The unfortunate officer was not killed by the first: vollev, but cried loudly, "Sty heaven! My parents! What sin have I commit led?" , Volley-firing was (.hen continued. A last horrible deiail lay in the fact, that since it was necessary to dress the corpse, a message was actually sent lo his wife asking for more clothes, as her husband "fell cold in the night air." Tho whole ol China was convulsed by the execution of those men, whose initial elTntU at Wuchang threw oft tho Manchu 3'oko,