additional line One Mace. One-half of these (pace Bonrarois) anil under, Ove Tae; each charges for repetitious. Contracts may be made for 3 mouths, or longer, payable in THERE seems little reason to doubt that China and Russia are nearer a collision than was expected. It is acknowledged that for years matters have been tending slowly but surely in one direction, and that the struggle which has been foreseen for the last three years is sensibly closer upon us than it has ever been heretofore. As long as Yakoob Beg lived there was a barrier, but since the death of the vigorous old chieftain the distance has been diminishing between the two Powers who yearn for supremacy in Central Asia, The three months after the breath was out of Yakoob's body, [we suppose him to have died in June, not in May, 1877], the Chinese began their march in the direction of Kusha and the western portion of Kashgaria, Before February in the following year, Kashgar surrendered; thus a Ohinese army, excited by the sense of recent victory, found itself on the Russian frontier and close to its old possession of Ili or Kuldja. We believe we are not wrong in saying that the Imperial Government: had then no more j cherished project in the inner heart of its policy than the recovery of Kuldja, {The campaign in the north-west, costly and long as it was, had in view this ultimate object. We all know with what time.defying patience the Chinese move towards an object. Here they jate very like the Russians; both are endowed with a power of making continuous and persistent efforts which no other peoples possess. Diplomacy has intervened, but the eud may yet be that the question will have to be fought oat. In the pause before the opening of the tragedy we recall to our readers? minds in few words when and how Kuldja became Rassiav. Eighteen years ayu, Russia and China " were close neighbours from the Amoor to the farm." They were living in amity and had treaties which defined matters
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.