make the duty of a conscientious annalist difficult. It one believed even one-twen-teeth of all that is circulated by sensible Chinese one could fill columns, but every day the facts-of the afternoon flatly coutradict the certainties Of the morning; and the news of the evening is utterly irreconciliable with both. Nearly all our news comes from rural Chinese sources, and is therefore tainted at its fount. Chinese, at present, are in a frenzy of fear and credulity, utterly incompatible with sane observation or true narrative. I have bad to give up the telegraph, simply because it waa sheer impossibility to avoid shocking Shanghai with unintentional lies. The Jesuit and Protestant missions get some sort of information from their people, but for the most part it-turns out the product of imaginative fear. Let your readers, therefore, be ready to make a very heavy discount on all so-called news from the North, and ea-pecially telegraphic news. The information 1s sent in perfect good faith and is the result of very careful examination and comparison but it is often flatly contradicted before an hour is over. To-day, General Nieh has gone up the line with 5,000 of his fairly drilled and well-armed men (from Lutai). On Tuesday, at 10 am, it was credibly reported he had advanced against the Boxers and killed one thousand. At 1 p.m. he had been defeated, slain, and his head was going round the countryside on the end of alike. Whereas the facts were, that he got on board the Peking train at or near Yang-tsun (some 18 miles from Tientsin), advanced with it about three miles beyond Lafa and then ordered it instantly to return to Tientsin as he saw the Boxers' fires on ahead, Now Mr, C. W. Campbell, of the Consular service, and Mr. A. Currie, the engineer of the line, were on the train; they had powerful field glasses and were confident there were no fires and no sign of any enemy. They wished to goon, but the stout old otdier (1!) would not hear of it and insisted on going back to his men, professing great anxiety for the foreigner ives, These gentlemen were in the General's presence an hour ater the pike business; yet the latter had credit all over the city, even among many officials.
It is comedy like this that makes one wholly dubious of another battle yesterday, in which Nieh defeated the Boxers and took The probable facts are that Niel's orders are to demonstrate against the Boxera in a pastive way, do as much railway protection as possible, but to abstain from attack and not to fight at all except in self-defence. All the history of the past fifteen days points to something like this, The Chinese could crush the sedition in a tew days, if they wanted to, They don't want to, a8 the reactionaries are temporising there may be virtue in Boxer potency against foreigners. The sooner this is recognised the better. Get rid of the influence of Yi Hsien, Tuan, and men of vey in Peking, and the situation will brighten up immediately.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.