But someone will object, "The calnmity which threatens to overthrow China, both A Léshi and Jung Zu dread. Can we believe that they joyously and willingly bring about all this?" "nose who bring forward this objection are stupid, and altogether fail to understand the plans of these two. A Lé-shi is about 70 years of age. Could she live to the age of 80 or even 90 her ime ix only short.
Foreigners are now adopting a slow process by which to destroy us, and the danger creeps on almost imperceptibly. A Léshi and Jung Lu know this perfectly well. They say our Empire is Even if each' year we parcel off a little, twenty or thirty years will pass before the whole is yone.. If they retain Pechili and Shensi, ying near "Russian territory, they will yet enjoy the pleasure of ruling' over a small country, which will yet ensttre them having some wealth and honour. At present Annam is conquered, but her ruler still assumes the style of Emperor, and each year receives a subsidy of 000. A Lé-shi looks forward ment of the same privileges. In regard to Jung Lu, he thinks that the prime minister of a big empire is less honourable than the king of a small kingdom, and this position he is silently plotting to gain. I can read clearly enough the mind of these two. The: joyfully, without a pang of remorse, divide the empire, and allow others to curtail their power; meanwhile our 400,000,000 are becoming eternal slaves, so that our.prosperity will be everlastingly cut off. This must plunge us all in grief.
LOSS OF CHINA A MATTER OF TIME, The internal provinces may not perhaps pass from our hands for some time. But if Kuangtung, Fukien, and the other maritime provinces are lost, the athars must follow. A man who has hanged himself, if the rope is not cut, even before the breath is gone out of his body, is practically dead. Alas! what have been our faults that we should have been sold into bondage! The giving up of Formosa is a distant, the ceding of Sunon the near warning. Do we then really wish that country should be sold Shall we sit 1", Tejoicitis that those two are deliberate-exterminating our race? A Lé-shi and Jung Lu, having dethroned the Emperor and usurped his throus, daily attend to the selling of the empire which may go within a year. The people listlessly sit by, and, as if they were glad of it, wait to sign the deed of their own extinction. What jealousy have they shown Therefore foreigners all say the Chinese have no patriotism, But perhaps one may
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.