BOOK III—POLITICAL
CHAPTER I.
Secret Societies
During the past twenty years the writer's calling has often brought him into close contact with and even into sharp opposition to secret society organizations in Ssŭch'uan. The chief difficulty in studying such societies is, of course, that they are secret, and the divulging of details is likely to be severely punished.
The difficulty all missionary societies have had in getting a foothold in Ssŭch‘uan is due to the Tang Tzŭ Hang (黨子行), or Confucian Society. The plots of the literati culminated in the riots of 1895. From that year till about 1902 new influences were brought into play by bringing the more lawless elements of society into action. This period might be called the Hypnotic Period; it includes the Yŭ Man-tzŭ rebellion of 1898, the Boxer upheaval of 1900, and the local Boxer trouble of 1902, when the Boxer bands even entered the provincial capital.
From 1902 a new phase begins, when the Ch‘ien Tzŭ Hang (㡨子行), or Tally Society, made a movement toward
