The Times special correspondent at Pekin draws in a letter,
which appeared on the 22nd inst., a horrible picture of the ravages which the European troops have committed in Northern Mina. From the mouth of the PeihO to Tientsin, and from Tientsin half-way to Pekin, "not a single village, not a single house, has been spared." The great district which is to Pekin what Surrey and Hampshire are to London was most fertile, but to-day "not a furrow breaks the monotony of the drab-coloured waste." All who are not dead, and there has been much massacre, have fled, traffic has ceased, even the rivers are deserted. Pekin itself has been plundered to the bare walls, the Forbidden City suffering especially at the hands of the Russians, who have sent home all the Empress- Regent's accumulated treasures. Much of the looting was done by the "Boxers" themselves, who seem to have gone mad with license; but after the Allies entered the city there was a regular sack, with all the crimes which accompany it. The English, Americans, and Indians seem to have been guiltless of the worst offences, but even they joined in the plunder. Those of the people who remain seem thoroughly cowed, but the " Boxer " spirit, it is said, lurks within, and when the troops depart there may be horrible scenes of vengeance, especially on native Christians. Every Christian will be considered an ally of the brutal barbarian. We fail, we confess, to see the slightest justification for all this cruelty, which, if practised in Europe, would have covered its perpetrators with infamy.
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