RIOTS AT CANTON.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 10, 12 January 1881, Page 4

RIOTS AT CANTON.

The telegrams received a couple of months ago about riots and massacres at Canton appear to have been exaggerated. Mr. Don, formerly of Port Chalmers, and now a missionary in Chins, has sent an interesting letter to the Presbyterian, from which we make an extract : — " We have had a rather exciting time in Canton lately. A fire broke out among tbe houses of the stonecutters at the Roman Catholic Cathedral here, and a row ensued between the Hakka workmen and Poonti firemen. Gradually a mob of 6000 or !7000 collected and circulated all sortß of rumors, some to the effect that the French priests had drowned Beveral j children in a well, &c. The Viceroy had to call out the soldiers, and the riot was stopped after the mob had been fired into, and some two or three of their number killed. The Viceroy then sent to our English Consul in Shamin that the mob were coming up to annihilate tbe foreigners, and so we put ourselves in a state of preparation. When I say we, I don't include myself and one or two others who were soundly sleeping all through the night, and knew little of the affair till the next day's Hong Kong China Mail arrived with a leading article which frightened us. iThe whole affair was made too much of at tbe time, and after it was over most people felt inclined to laugh over it. Soldiers have been guarding Shamin •since, but up to the present (29th September) nothing has happened. In the , country, however, matters are different, for reports have spread that the foreigners have been driven ont, that the cathedral has been pulled down, &c, which reports, as they proceed among the ignorant, are believed and added tc. This led the Revs. T. Selby and G. Morris, of the Wesleyan Mission— who left for the interior on tbe 20th September — being attacked by a large mob at a place sixty miles from Canton. They were in great danger, and Mr. Selby, who bas travelled overland to Pekin, and haß encountered much during his twelve years' experience in China, thus writes : — ' The issue of life or death turned upon a few seconds ; it waß the nearest shave I have had.' They got away bruised."