Show BELIEVES THEY ARE ALIVE OLD RESIDENT OP CHINA SAYS LEGATION ERS WERE LIKELY NOT KILLED wasfi july 7 J D clark editor of the Shan mercury and war correspondent of the london news arrived here today on the rio jua maru from shanghai he has been a resident ct china for forty years speaking of the conditions there he said 1 I see by tha dispatches that hope has been given up of the safety of the foreigners in peking I 1 cannot the conditions warrant this belief ana am ot the opinion they are yet safe and will be for a reasonable length of time there are about english speaking people in peking and these we know hare taken refuge in the british legation that building fa a large and strongly built place and while there may have been dis com forture on account of lack of sufficient food supplies I 1 am convinced it could withstand attack surrounding peking there were about two hundred english speaking people some of these succeeded in getting into the legation others reached tien tsan while more were slaughtered probably persons we believe are within the legation there is still a greater reason tor believing the foreigners within the legation have not been murdered while the boxers are in control of peking and while the hue and cry is kill for eigners elg ners they are wise enough to know the death knell of the cause they espouse would be sounded in a wholesale slaughter of foreign diplomats the german ambassador lost his life not on account of his position but because he was a foreigner he ventured out alone while the hideous cries ot kill the foreign devils were being shouted from every corner he was recognized ag a foreigner and to my mind the men who did the work were not aware of his official position so I 1 say we need not give up hope tor the inmates of the british legation yet although help must be rendered soon 1 I have the best hopes of the safety of shanghai and the cities in the adjacent provinces while the viceroys vice roys are the appointees of tha empress dowager they are sensible to countermand anything that would rob them of their position they are not really in sympathy with the boxer movement and are at least deml friendly toward foreigners of course while there Is dilatory action on the part of the powers the boxers will gain strength and to predict what they are capable of doing would be foolish the backward policy of the powers on account of insufficient troops has added strength to the boxers and to those who know the country it is no surprise that the anti foreign movement is extending southward it will be necessary for the powers to gather a sufficient force to not only take peking but to capture the emperor empress dowager and other boxer heads just as long as they are allowed freedom there will be trouble and atrocities |