Germany is furnishing us with some interesting news this week.
She has successfully accomplished something which, to simple folks whoare not diplomatists, seems like a plain, every-day case of robbery.
Here is the story of it, and you can judge for yourselves.
Some German missionaries have been killed in China, and Germany hasseized a Chinese port in revenge.
Missionaries are, as you know, holy and devoted men who go to farcountries to spread the knowledge of the Gospel among heathen andunenlightened people.
These good men have always suffered much for their faith. They gowherever their duty calls, and even carry their message of peace to theterrible cannibals who kill and eat men.
In the early annals of our own country we have records of the terriblesufferings endured by these good men in their missionary work among theredskins.
Missionaries count their perils and their privations as nothing if theycan but do the work of God.
Every government is particularly careful to do all that it can toprotect its missionaries, and if ignorant savages do them harm, anattempt is always made to punish the wrongdoers, to teach them thatthese servants of God are well protected.
The German Catholic Church some time ago established a mission inShantung Province, China. Recently the sad news was received in Berlinthat the mission at Yen Chu Fu had been attacked, and two missionarieskilled.
The shameful deed was at first attributed to pirates, but later it wasfound that it had been planned by the governor of the province inrevenge for some old grievance.
Following this outrage came news that the captain of a German gunboathad been attacked by a Chinese mob, which also insulted the German flagby throwing stones at it.
The Government was extremely angry at this, and immediately demanded anexplanation from China.
The Chinese Government expressed its sorrow for the occurrence, and sentorders to the governor of Shantung to arrest and punish the offenders.
Germany was informed of the action taken by the Chinese Government,which, it is said, used all possible diligence and haste to bring theoffenders to justice; so much diligence, in fact, that on the 15th ofthe month the governor of Shantung telegraphed that he had arrested fourof the culprits.
Germany, however, went right ahead in her own way, without paying anyheed to the efforts China was making to appease her; and to the intensesurprise of the world, simultaneously with the news of the arrests cameword that Germany had seized one of the Chinese harbors in the YellowSea.
The Yellow Sea is on the east of China, and is formed by the peninsulaof Korea. Shantung, where the missionaries were killed, is a provincebordering on the Yellow Sea, and the fortified bay captured by theGermans is called Kiao Chou, and is an excellent harbor on the ShantungCoast, with the town of Kiao lying at its head.
This harbor was guarded by three forts, which were manned by fifteenhundred Chinese soldiers.
Without word or warning the German admiral entered the bay, steamed upopposite the forts, and ranged his ships in line of battle. He then sentword to the Chinese commander