Yangzhou Riot - The Riot

The Riot

When the riot broke out the following members of the China Inland Mission were in Yangzhou : Mr. and Mrs. Hudson & Maria Taylor with four children (Herbert, Frederick, Samuel & Maria), Miss Emily Blatchley, Miss Louise Desgraz, Mr. and Mrs. William David Rudland, and Messrs. George Duncan and Henry Reid.

On Saturday, August 22, two foreigners came over from Zhenjiang to spend a few hours sight-seeing in the city, and almost immediately the city was full of wild rumors about the disappearance of as many as twenty-four children. By 4 P.M. the Mission premises were besieged. Messengers were dispatched to the Prefect, but with no effect. The passions of the crowd were growing, and at last, when the attack upon the premises had become full-scale, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Duncan determined to face the mob and try and make their way personally to the Yamen.

Mr. Taylor and Mr. Duncan, after having been badly stoned, reached the Yamen in an exhausted condition to find the terrified gatekeepers closing the gates; the doors gave way before the pressure of the mob when the missionaries rushed into the judgment hall crying Kiu ming! Kiu ming ! ("Save life! Save life ! "), a cry to which any official is bound to attend at any hour, day or night. They were kept waiting in an agony of suspense for forty-five minutes before they saw the Prefect, and then only to be provokingly asked, " What do you really do with the babies ? " ; this interview was followed by another agonizing delay of two hours before they learned that help had been sent, though even then they were told on their way back that all the foreigners left in the house had been killed.

Those left in the mission house feared that the two who had faced the mob had been torn to pieces. When the house was set on fire from below the children and women had to be lowered from the upper story, and Mrs. Taylor and Miss Blatchley with their escape cut off had to jump, both were seriously injured. Mr. Reid was nearly blinded for life by being struck in the eye with a brick when trying to break Mrs. Taylor s fall.

That any of the party escaped to tell the tale was little less than a miracle. However, the whole party of missionaries, several of whom were severely wounded and weak from the loss of blood, were enabled on Monday, August 23, the anniversary of little Gracie Taylor’s death, to journey down to Zhenjiang, where they were cared for.