yA. Horny Author of "Tu the For-11," ete., ete.
With Hlustrations and Maps bythe Author, In two volumes, pp. 882 and 423. London William vinemann, 1901. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, Ld These are by far the most weighty volumes which even in an extended experience we have met with as dealing with the Celestial Empire, especially if one undertakes to read them reclining in a hammock by the sounding waves, or under the soughing pines, To be exact, including the stout protecting outer paper wrappers, the two together weigh just three ounces less than eight pounds avoirdupois, for the covers are thick and so are the leaves.
Each volume is divided into cight-and-sixty chapters, which are frequently separated by a line as invisible as a meridian, on the modern fashion of the expert paragraphist, whose thoughts appear to come in jets only. The preface is commendably brief, consisting merely of the following words: "The aim of this book has been to give a record of events as they ocourred, and to avoid national or personal prejudice." The earlier chapters plunge at once into a revelation of the true inwardness of the Boxer business, and the reader is then gradually enlightened by a summary of events based largely on the British Blue books, down to the attack on Tientsin, by which time the author had arrived in person. From this point the narrative is more minute and vivid, down to the end of chapter LI where Mr. Gammon's " historical wife" is introduced (she escaped in 1871 from the massacre, and again in 1900) at which point, " speaking of guns," there is sudden diversion into a trip made in the year of our Lord 1891 to a Trappist Monastery, the notes of which are reprinted "while you wait" for the march to relieve Peking. The reason alleged for this irrational digression was that the author had heard that these monks had been killed, hence the reader would want to know how the author got to their monastery nine years previously. A similar padding occurs in the second volume where there are thirty-nine pages of Chinese hiv tory, beginning with 2 singularly turbid account of the origin of the present dynasty, and a sketchy, disproportioned narrative of isolated events since it began. This would not have been out of place had the relation of these occurrences to present conditions been exhibited, which is far from being the case. There is no percep! ble reason for limiting the range to a single dynasty, when more than twenty others were squatting at the outside gate waiting to be Jet in. The account of what the author himself saw in Tientsin, on the way to Peking, during the attack on Peking, and after the occupation, is straightforward and readable, although it is evidently merely the letters of a correspondent, and might have been judiciously pruned at least fifty per cent. His judgment of the leading facts is generally good, and many mistakes into which a comparative stranger might be expected to fall, have been avoided. The author's strongest point was his camera, which never seems to have Jeff him for an instant, and he has succeeded in reproducing views taken at the most singular crises, such as the discharge of artillery a few fect away, the attack in several engagements, the rushing of troops for cover under heavy fire, and the like. The photographs thus taken are naturally not very well defined, but one may condone that on the principle enunciated by Dr. Johnson when speaking of woman's preaching, which he declared to resemble a dog's walking on his hind legs—it is not well done, but then, it is a surprise to see it done at al A more serious objection to the! illustrations is the author's strange penchant for whatever is horrible or disgusting. He is fond of catching snap-shots of some one who is in the act of being killed, of ese or Chinese just falling, of the bodies of those who have been killed as they lie, of a dog gnawing a corpse, of a by its queue ("pi), of hanging together partly decomposed (one being out of sight, it is explained where it is and why it is not taken separately, the smell being too overpowering), one of them being that of a eunuch who had been tortured, and apparently partly skinned alive.
The author somewhere found a picture of the usual representations in the temples ofthe city-god, showing the punishments of Hades, and to this he gives a lurid double-page coloured illustration. Six persons are having their lives pressed out under a huge platform on which the executioner is dancing, and others to the number of about a dozen in all are either being burnt, beaten, or hacked, or are awaiting their turn. We cannot think the selection a fortunate one. A larger experience would have enabled him to secure one exhibiting at least twenty persons being ground in mills, sawn asunder, boiled in oil, driven with prods over the bridge across the " Naiho," not one of which is here to be seen, and there is no little dog at the bottom licking up the blood.
In order to make his narrative continuous the author has obtained a journal of the Siege in Peking, which he carefully edits in such a way that it might at first be supposed that it was given at first hand, since he does not inform us whose writing it is, There is in it much that is true and picturesque, and an air of extreme precision is imparted to it by the notation of the number of minutes past the hour when the firing was renewed, or a flag of truce was sent in. But the material has not been well digested, and in the midst of this ostentatious accuracy one meets with egret gious errors which no one cognisant of the facts could have allowed to pass. The most glaring instance of this in at page 59 vol. Il, where the murder of Baron von Ketteler is narrated. Here within the compass of about twenty lines are tirelve blunders, some of them serious ones, such as that the Minister was accompanied by a German guard, that this was exchanged for a Chinese Giard; that the officer of it the safety of the party that the Ministers had been "invited" to go; that the Baron was "instructed by the other Ministers that the imaginary Chinese guard attacked the Minister " on entering the Yamen that he was bayonetted in his chair; that Mr. Cordes ran away but returned to see what had become of his chief; and that "the Mission" was near by. There are other lesser misstatements, but a historian who lets such slip-shod affirmations ay these pass for exact truth, must not be surprised if some of the details where it is impossible to follow him are taken with many grains of salt. Many of the errors relate to matters not in themselves important, yet so well-known that it. would appear easy to"get the facts if this had been considered worth while. An instance or two will illustrate the nature of the slips referred to. Some weeks after the siege, Dr. Martin, President of the Imperial University, sent a notification to the various Professors that the Institution had for the time, and perhaps permanently, collapsed, but that there was a chance that their services might be again required. He also told them the welcome news that the arrears of their salary, and the claim for dismissal without notice would be paid in full. This could be done because the Russo-Chinese Bunk had in its possession large sum of money belonging to the Chi. nese Government, and the Managers were willing to pay so much of the just debts of that Government as this implied—not a heavy tax upon a large fund.
Now this is the form in which this incident appears in Mr, Landor's pages "The Russians were stid (and I have it on good authority) to have behaved with rear generosity toward some ut the for-cagners who lad been employed in the university, and who, failing the support f their respective Ministers, had applied directly to the Russian General to try and obtain payment of the arrears of their salary owed them by the Chinese Government. Although not their ce-nationals, the Russians agreed that the request was just and readily disbursed the money. This was by no means the first nor the last occasion on which the Russian officers Vehaved toward British or American subjects (sic)in such a manner, showing them-Selves absolutely free from the nonsensical red tape which characterises cur own jlitary men and our officials in general in countries." If Mr. Lander has found a set of military of who are ready to pay the just ut uncollectable debts of people in general, he dues right
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.