Chine cud the Powers, A Naveati the Outbreak of 1406. By H.C. Thomp. son, author of "The Chitral-Campaign," ete. With thirty illustrations and tro maps, Longman, Green, and Ca., London, New York, and Bombay. 1902, The author of this work was one of the numerous correspondents who visited China in the year 1900, and who was able from various sources to come to certain conclusions in regard to the origin, progress, concomitants, and results of the great China cataclysm. There gathering from his narrative at what point he enters upon the scene, nor when he left it, but he appears to have been in China long enough to got a tolerably clear idea of the general conditions, and to be able to speak with an air of considerable authority as to matters which to a stranger are ordinarily somewhat difficult of comprehension. It is the business of a correspondent to absorb with a certain deft Tapidity the salient aspects of a situation, and by a composite photograph of everything that he hears about it, filtered through the medium of his own wide experience and observation, to come to a
all. more or les just conclusion in regard to it Mr. Thompson calls his work " China and the Powers," a title which is a great many sizes too large for its very limited scope. The sub-title is "A Narrative of the Outbreak of 1900," which is even more astray from fitness, since this would gest a comprehensive notice of what took place in China in the fatal year, so far as it was related to "the outbreak." Nothing of this is, however. to be met with. What is said of the complex causes leading to the uprising is confined mainly to four of the earlier pages, when we find ourselves at the end of 1899, beyond which point a rough sketch is given of the events which followed, beginning with the Seymour Expedition, and in succeeding chapters the capture of the Taku forts, the siege of Tientsin, the attack on j end capture of Tientsin, with a general outline of the march to Peki and the relief of the Legations, beyond which the narrative fades, and the remainder of the hook consists of essays on the policy of the Powers individually, the punitive expe Ho tells us (p. 6.) that "After the murder of Mr. Brooks ho (the Governor Yii Hsien) was censured, and removed from office as a nominal mark of the Imperial displeasure," the fact being that the murder took place after the Governor had been removed, although before he had left Chinanfu, Tu the same connection, it is mentioned that Prince Tuan took the head-ship of the Boxers, and it is affirmed that "after this Chinese officials were everywhere supplanted by Manchus" of which Yi Lu is mentioned as an instance in the province of Chihli; the fact being that this particular appointment was nov an exchange of a Manchu for a Chinese, but of one for another, and that took place long before 'a similar prevalence of Manchus elsewhere. In another place (p. 80) Yii Lu is spoken of as if he were 2 Chinese, the difference bo-tween the races having dropped out of sight. The lack of careful ce-ordination of the different parts of his book, added to the inherent difficulty of the case, has ted the author into incessant repetitions. Thus on page 7. Mr. Brooks is (correct! said to have been killed late in Dec. 189} while on page 252 it happened " early 1900. The date of the departure of the given as Juno Srd, and there ig great "last train" from Peking ig wrongly confusion even in regard to the important capture of the Taku forts (which really occurred Sunday, 17th June) which on p. 22 is stated with inexcusable carelessness to hare been taken on the 16th, and again (p. 31) "on the night of June 15th." There is great exaggeration in some of the statements in regard to the military actions after the siege, as on p. 154, where are told that "ihe whole of the province of Chili has been laid absolutely waste," which as it stands is preposterously' incorrect, though it is true that much damage was done by military expeditions. It is very unlikely that' even one-third of the cities in Chibli were ever entered by foreign troops at all, and the term "laid waste " is wholly inappropriate for more than a small fraction of such movements as there were. Yet this gross misrepresentation is met with four times: "the destruction of practically the whole province of Chibli" (p. 158); "as the whole province of Chibli has been desolated" (p. 166), ete. A writer who is so unguarded as to use language in this
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.