The topic on the tables is the extraordinary article by Sir Robert Hart on the future of Chinn. It innow nearly half a century since a similar optimistic prophecy was made by other two equally wonderful mon—General Gordon and SirG, Wolseley. Both declared that Chiva had at lust broken off the sleep of ages and was about to surprise the world by the conquest of Asia and the remaining States! They, too, declared their belief in the ' Yellow Peril," fom the inexhaustible resources alike in men and means of the Flowery Lind, But no one intimately acquainted with the internal affairs of the Goveroment would ever credit such a for Until her armies be led, fed, and paid on some approximation to the needs of a public service, the troops of China will continue in the future, as they have been in the past, amore heterogeneous collection of hirelings and outcasts. Money may purchase arms and all the mechanism of modern warfare; but it will never make men—manly heroes. Reinforce the conscience of the Government and create character in the peuple, and then there may be some high hopes" for her future. Meantime a fearful fatalism all effort, progress, and reform, and China is a nation on the road to ruin, social, civic, and national. She does not possess those great and splendid beliefs that inspire men, create justice, cinoble government and ci na well as se, 4 State, Without these he must perish and decay, for "Such things are and will be when min-
Losing all virtue, lose all energy, And for the loss incur the penalty, "'Trodden down and trampled."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.