Imagine, if you can, a section of the city territory completely dominated by one man, without whose permission neither legitimate nor illegitimate business can be conducted; _where illegitimate business is encouraged and legitimate business discouraged_; where the respectable residents have to fasten their doors and windows summer nights and sit in their rooms with asphyxiating air and 100-degree temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in their natural breathing places, the stoops of their homes; _where naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like vultures through the darkness on “business”_ not only permitted but encouraged by the police; _where the education of infants begins with the knowledge of prostitution_ and the training of little girls is training in the arts of Phryne; where _American_ girls brought up with the refinements of _American_ homes are imported from small towns up-state, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and kept as virtually prisoners as if they were locked up behind jail bars until they have lost all semblance of womanhood; _where small boys are taught to solicit for the women of disorderly houses_; where there is an organized society of young men _whose sole business in life is to corrupt young girls and turn them over to bawdy houses_; where men walking with their wives along the street are openly insulted; _where children that have adult diseases are the chief patrons of the hospitals and dispensaries_; where it is the rule, rather than the exception, that _murder, rape, robbery, and theft go unpunished_--in short where the Premium of the most awful forms of Vice is the Profit of the politicians. The following news from China appeared in the _Sun_, of New York, on Christmas Eve. The italics are mine: The Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, has returned from a trip which he made for the purpose of collecting indemnities for damages done by Boxers. _Everywhere he went he compelled the Chinese to pay._ He says that all his native Christians are now provided for. He had 700 of them under his charge, and 300 were killed. He has _collected 300 taels for each_ of these murders, and has _compelled full payment for all the property belonging to Christians_ that was destroyed. He also assessed _fines_ amounting to THIRTEEN TIMES the amount of the indemnity. _This money will be used for the propagation of the Gospel._ Mr. Ament declares that the compensation he has collected is _moderate_ when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who demand, in addition to money, _head for head_. They collect 500 taels for each murder of a Catholic. In the Wenchiu country, 680 Catholics were killed, and for this the European Catholics here demand 750,000 strings of cash and 680 _heads_.