WASHINGTON, Many travellers returning to Peking to spend the winter have reached Tientsin after long delays only to find that their further progress is as hopelessly blocked as if the Himalaya range interposed. The Keen blasts from the north have frozen the Peiho, and boats are out of the question. The railway has long been hung out as a will-o'-the wisp, which was to materialise in "two months," in another " fifteen days," etc., but it has been remarkable that no single individual could tell you anything whatever about it, whether any work was going on, how much, where, to what point completed, by whom, when it was to be "handed over," whether it had already Been handed orer, etc., etc., ete. A more densely ignorant and uninformed community than that of Tienésin for the past two months it would hard to find, even in Asia. One day there came a rumour that some officials fad been executed at Paoting-fu. For the next three weeks everyone was enquiring of everyone else, who they were, whether they had really been Killed, and how many of them, to which the invariable reply was a confession of uncertainty as to any and all the facts. At last a private letter told the result, which was probably known long before to all the rest of the world. As to the "negotiations" in Peking, Egyptian darkness is an electric light in comparison with the formation accessible about them in Tientsin except through telegrams from Berlin or Washington.
HOPES, PROMISES, AND REGRETS, There have been the most definite ruincurs about coming attacks on the settlement, on the railways and the telegraphs, and the like, enough to give anxiety to the anxious, but not likely greatly to trouble those who confide in the military autho-Fities. Mr. Drew is leaving the post of Commissioner (to the deep regret of his friends, which means everybody). After a long interval in other fields Mr. Detring returns to his old position, where he has so often distinguished himself in former days, The Anglican Church is overflowing with attendants by reason of the unwonted accession to the civilian and military population. The Union Church has started in the old place of worship with a good attendance, and the Army and Navy Y.M.C.A. under the energetic superintendence of Mr. Galley is doing much for the comfort and welfare of the soldiers, but in new quarters, the regular building being for a long time used by the Japanese, and owing to too numerous saloons it is now in an undesirable location. Arrangements have been made for conveying the winter mails from Chinwangtao across the long (but diminishing) gap in the railway to Shanhaikuan, and it is to be hoped that there will be no failure in the fulfilment of our hopes. The health of the troops has suffered severely in many ways, and the suf-forings from the cold weather for which the Indian regiments seem ill-fitted must be great, especially in the case of convoys to and from the Capital. The railway is once more promised very soon, and construction-trains are said to be already going quite through—but the only way to verify the rumour seems to be to try to go on one yourself. This some of us are hoping at no distant day to do.
10th December.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.