Of late the public at: home has not con-corned itself greatly with the Far Bastern question: but its interest is aroused afresh this morning by the publication in the "Times" of a communication which Mr, Blowitz, the Paris correspondent_of the leading journal, has received from Dr. Ular, who has revealed to him some remarkable confidential documents relating to negotiations between Russia and Chin: before the Boxer rising reached its climax. To quote Dr, Ular's own comments on these documents, "as to several details they are somewhat obscure; but they prove clearly that there was a Russo-Chinese agreement before the outbreak of the Boxer movement. This agreement may not have been a formal treaty, signed and countersigned, but its effect is the same. It states simply that Manchuria, Mongolia, part of Turkestan, and Tibet are no longer parts of the Ciinese Empire, that those countries are now under the protection of Russia (as Mongolia), or annexed to Russia (as Manchuria). In presence of this state of things, it seems a mere comedy to enter once more upon negotiations about the retrocession of Manchuria. The annexation of Manchuria was a fact recognised and agreed upon two years ago." The documents further throw some interesting light on the probable part played by Russia, in promoting, if not instigating the Boxer rising in its early stages. Altogether the revelation seems likely to cause considerable stir.
The King's Sanatorium for Consumptives.
An exceedingly gratifying announcement was made yesterday in the pages of the "British Medical Journal." It is to the effect that a philanthropist, who for the present remains anonymous, has presented to the King for application to charitable, or utilitarian purposes, a sum amounting to something like £200,000, and that the King has decided to devote it to the foundation of a perfectly equipped sanatorium for a hundred tuberculous patients. He has appointed a committee of six of the most eminent physicians and consumption specialists of the day, and he has devoted a sum of £800 to prizes for essays. and plans for the construction of a model sanatorium. We have heard much lately of the marvellous results which have been obtained by means of the open-air treatment of consumption but the "Times" suggests this morning with much show of reason that the notion "is being a little overdone just now." It is only recently that physicians have realised how greatly foul air increases and hastens tuberculous and other diseases of the lungs; but it is still doubtful whether the open-air treatment is so much a cure as a removal of causes which aggravate the disease. The King's sanatorium will doubtless provide for patients a good deal more than open windows. for that is a remedy which most. patients can obtain in their own homes. Doubtless the quality of the air varies in different places; but. as the "Times" remarks, even the air of London is really not at all bad. Tt is understood that the donor is Sir Ernest Cassel.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.