Chinese Secret Society Conspiracy Theory
CONSPIRACY THEORY
THIS subject is not only curious; from day to day it may become most gravely pressing. The secret societies of China are innumerable; and although the very great majority have no concern with public affairs, since most of them are persecuted, not one, perhaps, is friendly to the government; But the great leagues are furiously hostile. Expulsion of the Tartar, and, as we should say, China for the Chinese, are their passwords and mottoes. They work without ceasing to overthrow the dynasty; every year they raise revolts, and at intervals they break out in a grand rebellion. Schlegel satisfied himself that the Taiping movement was the work of the T'ien-Ti-Hwey, and no man has such authority to pronounce. It is certain, at least, that the troubles which began that tremendous outbreak in 1849 were directed by Hung-siu-Tsuien, a Grand Master of the T'ien-Ti. Wherever Chinamen dwell they have their secret societies, affiliated to the parent Hwey, and the professed object always is to overthrow the imperial line. It may be doubted whether the emigrants of San Francisco or Melbourne trouble themselves about home politics, but a percentage of their subscriptions is transmitted to the mother lodge. In brief, those acquainted with the state of things would feel no surprise if tomorrows newspaper announced a revolution in China.
First of these societies in every point of view is the T'ien-Ti-Hwey – I adopt the spelling now approved by Chinese scholars. Dr. Milne drew attention to it so far back as 1825. His book Some Account of a Secret Society in China attracted the notice of Gustav Schlegel, interpreter to the government of Netherlands India; also of Dr. Joseph Schauburg, a learned and enthusiastic Freemason of Zurich. I shall have no room to dwell upon the striking resemblance of the usages and ritual of the T'ien-Ti to those of Freemasonry, and I cite Dr. Schauburg's name only to put inquirers on the track. Schlegel's personal investigations were started by a lucky chance. A Chinaman dwelling at Padang, in Sumatra, was suspected of theft, and the police searched his house. They found there a quantity of books and papers showing that a lodge of the T'ien Ti was established at Padang, with two hundred members. Schlegel obtained these documents; and all other evidence past and future, bearing on the subject was placed at his disposal by the government. Upon these he published his famous work The Thian-Ti Hwey, or Hung League, in 1866; but he obtained no assistance whatever from Chinamen. I could not find one among them, he says, to confirm or deny any single article of my discoveries. At a later date, however, Mr. W. A. Pickering, Protector of Chinese and Registrar of Secret Societies in Singapore, won such confidence among the leaders of the Hung there, that they allowed him even to attend their meetings. But he does not flatter himself with the notion that the rites performed in his presence were those that would have been held under other circumstances.
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