Chinese don't like telegraph

The Chinese Don't Like the Telegraph

An Associated Press despatch sent out from San Francisco, September 13, is as follows:

The steamer from China reports that over 20,000 people assembled at Lung Chow in the province of Hunan, recently, to prevent workmen from putting up telegraph lines. Ten thousand poles were burned and the men were driven over the boundary. A society has been formed to keep the telegraph out, and a mob is still on the watch. Great apprehension is felt by the inhabitants of the border districts in Hupei. At New Chang, Dr. Greig, a missionary doctor, has been assassinated by soldiers. The matter has been placed in the hands of Mr. Ayrton, British Consul. It is thought this is a local affair, not connected with secret societies.

Hunan is in central China. The name means South of the Lake, the province lying South of Lake Tung-Ting. It is also a little South of the Yangtse-Kiang, and it is the most fertile and best watered province of all China. With the province north of it it forms an immense basin, of which the greatest depression is occupied by the big lake. Its population is over 18,000,000. Its people have been very little influenced in any way by the Western world, and are greatly opposed to innovations. The London Times a few weeks ago called Hunan the most troublesome province in the empire.