We have already mentioned having received the white book containing Sir Claude Macdonald's report on the siege at Peking from the military point of view. It occupies nearly thirty-two closely printed foo'seap pages, and it would require a very long article to deal with it fully. Most of the facts in it, however, are already well known, and it will suffice if we draw attention to such new points as may occur to us as we skim through Sir Clande's ably compiled summary. It is to be regretted that the Foreign Office did not see its way to publishing the maps and plans which Sir Claude sent home with his report. His descriptions are, indeed, cleat enough: but a map or plan is never superfluous in telling the story of a siege, however lucid the writer's description may be.
Sir Claude begins from. the time when the murder of Baron von Ketteler cleared up the situation, and all the women and children in Pekin, were ordered into the British Legation. How tightly the besieged were packed is shown in the following extract:—The student interpreters gave up their quarters and slept in the" tingerhs" or open reception halls; most of the staff also ga their houres, The Second. Secretary's (Air. Dering's) was handed over to the Russian Legation and bank. The Accountant's was handed over to the members of the French Legation and their wives and families. The ladies of the American Legation occupied the doctor's quarters, and one block of the students' rooms was given over to the Imperial Maritime Customs. Fifteen ladies were accommodated in the ball-room of the Minister's, howe, twelve others lived in the smoking-room, the billiard-room, w slept in the corridors. The Belgian, Japanese, and Italian Ministers "and their families, together with the widowed Baronets Ketteler, were also accommodated in \ister's house. In all, 78 Europeans slept in this building, which' usually accommodate a dozen; whilst nearly $00 lived within the four walls of the Legation during the eight weeks' siege, the normal number being about sixty.
Curiously enough, no mention is made of the large number of missionaries who were quartered in the chapel. The disappearance of Mr. Huberty James, whose actual fall was not seen by any foreigner, is mentioned, and it is added that if on that
een put in a state of defence, the rst night, before the pons. had attack had been pressed home, the result must have been disastrous. Mention is made of the various subcommittees appointed in the British Legation, and a due compliment is paid to the engineer, the Kev. F. Gamewell. In reference to these committees Sir Claude says that "there was, of course, some little confusion at first; but before many days everything worked smoothly, and by applying 10 the proper committee even watches could be mended and boots repaired free of charge."
The details of the siege are very graphically given and itis interesting in the extreme to watch the fortune of war now favouring one side, now the other. The assailants of the Legations were fully conscious of the value of fire as an ally, and in the early days of the siege the defenders had to use all their energies to combat this dangerous foe. For nearly a week a daily and hourly fight took p'ace against the efforts of the enemy to burn out the garrison. And yes we have heard an English officer of high rank declare that there was no siege at Peking, and that accounts of it are vastly exaggerated. An extract from Sir Claude's account under dave the 25th of June is a no able comment on this. He mentions that an imperial decree on a board proposing a cessation of hostilities was brought to the North Bridge. The men who brought the board were fired at by Tung Fu-hsiang's soldiers and dropped it and ran. "The board
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.