amer cane no doubt that the Chinese low with the most intense interest the struggle now going on in -Europe and Asia between their dreaded neigh-whaur and the Tarks, They are in-"formed of all the incidents of the two campaigns, and they watch the news which the telegrams bring with keen anxiety., The foreigner who will talk tothem on the all-absorbing subject is "always popular, and they display the most.-lively and vivid. curiosity when the great struggle agsames any new phase, As we might expect, the victories of the Turks afford them the keenest satisfaction. Up to a recent date, in spite of some bluster and bravado, there wes no doubt that the Ohinese feared the Weatern nations, nd: they are.quite wise enough to know that it would. be extreme folly to take any, step which would provoke an attack upon: them by any-of the halfjozdin great. European Powers; but the Chinaman now watches events and reads =the signs of the times, and scans the "political. situation with attentive eyes.
He' is perfectly well aware how the powerfal European nations are holding sveneh other in check, and he watches the great chess-board with a strong impression that at no distant date he lomay find himself with a very consider able interest in the result of the game, He has estimated the strength, size, population, revenue, and resources of the Turkish Empire, and the conclusion is. gradually presenting itself to him that if Tarkey can make so bold a resistance to the aggressions of the vast and ambitious Despotism, the Middle Kingdom with her four hundred millions of people need not feel any great alarm. As telegram after telegram comes in, announcing now "that Dervish Pasha has carried the advanced Russian positions at Batoum again, "that the Russians are repulsed '-on the Osman Bazar road later, "that "Suleiman Pasha -has arrived at Elena, north of the Balkans and later yet, "that Ahmed Mukhtar Pacha has defeated the Russians with vast loss the spirits of the Chinaman rise, and he looks forward with a confidence not altogether ill-placed towards his- own future chances, if the clash with the Giant should come.
For our own part, though thoroughly—understanding the feelings of the native, and seeing nothing discreditable in them, we cannot forgot that between the Tark and the Chinese there is a wide difference. The Tark has doubtless many faults, but he is "a man of war from his youth." Each scimitar is wielded by a combatant who feels as strongly as if the whole fight rested on him. And this is a matter of the first importance. An intelligent Neapolitan gentleman remarked during the Crimean War, when he saw a Rassian and an English regiment drawn up together in the same square:—' See, there is but one face in that whole regiment; while in that (pointing to the English) every soldier has a face of his. own." If this observa~ tion has any trath in it when applied to the contrast between the Englishman and the Russian, it hae far greater force when applied to the difference between the Turk and the Chinese. The courage of an army is the sum total of the courage which the individual soldiers bring with them to it, rather than of that which they derive from it. Now it is idle to say that from their traditions or esprit de corps tho:-Chinese would derive anything. Comparatively to European troops, the "ever victorious army" was a mere mob of coolies. The spirit and genius of the nation are utterly averse to war or warlike fame. The name of a soldier is not, as it is in Turkey, a name of credit and honour; it is a term of contempt. According to the old and well worn proverb, "any iron will make a-nail and any fellow a soldier." The commercial instincts of the people are developed, as we know to our cost, to an extraordinary degree. The Ohina-man chaffering, the Chinaman caleulating the rate of exchange, the Ohina-mau trying to get a candareen more for his goods, is a happy, an efficient, an unsurpassable creature; but the glories of war have no attraction for him. Though some of the stories about the helplessness of the Chinese soldiers during the Taiping' rebellion are probably ingenious and somewhat malicious inventions, there is no doubt that the show by the Imperial armies was far from good. Of course, in a war with any European Power to-day, things would be altered. The Chinese would have better leaders, and very tolerable equipments. They would be able to command iron-clads and the guns of Krupp, and they have vast masses of men. Still, though the news from Balgaria and Armenia proves that an Oriental Power can even in these days give a European Power much trouble, the fact stated above remains, that all Orientals are. not alike. The Chinese must not imagine that they would find their task an easy one, because the Russians have discovered that the conquest of Turkey is not a mere walk over, and that the expulsion of the Mohammedans bag and baggage from Europe is a heavier task than Mr. Gladstone professed to expect.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.