Whatever may be the known predileetions of the principal Ministers of the Empress Dowager, one thing is satisfactory, and that is Viceroy Yuan Shih-kai is perfectly aware of the insidious and secret designs of the Russians and is therefore anxious to provide measures against them. A Northern dispatch to hand reports that Viceroy Yuan, with this end in view, has made arrangements to dis-arch at an carly date some 8,000 of his foreign-modelled troops to garrison Shan haikwan and important points between that place and Chinchou, and as a further measure of precaution, H.E. has raised and nearly finished organising an extra Corps, composed of some 6,000 of all arms, prison points in the North-eastern of Peking, thus forming a sort of semicircle around the Capital, with that city as the centre of radios. Behind these troops, again, numerous other Corps are being hastily organised, com-} posed of both Chinese and Manchus, all of them properly provided with small arms and field pieces of modern const ruck tion and using smokeless powder, for manufacturing which factories are seatter-ed throughout the Empire, numbering at the present moment fourteen, a figure expreted to be nearly doubled by the middle of the present year. By April of this year it will not be too much to state that Viceroy Yuan will hare at his command an army of at Toast 50,000 well-armed and properly drilled men.
The "Evacuation" of Manchuria by Russia.
The following iv a specimen of the Russian "Evacuation" of Manchuria, as seen from recent dispatches received by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the Tartar Generals of Northern and Lower Manchuria. The Tartar General of Fengtien (Lower Manchuria), Tseng Chi. sent the following:—"The Russian Army of Occupation at Tiehlin Pass has been withdrawn, and the various brigades composing it are now stationed along the Railway between Newchwang and Moukden and are apparently intended to form the so-called 'Railway Guards' of the Manchurian Railway in the future." The Tartar General of Heilungehiang (Nor-them Manchuria or the Chinese Amur region) sent the following:—" The Man-clit Brigade General stationed near the Russian frontiers reports that from the beginning of October to the 20th of December last no less. than 3,500. new Russian troops with lange quantities of war munitions passed through his jurisdiction en route for Central Manchuria (Kirin), while the two regiments of Cossacks, about 1,500 strong, hitherto stationed in Tsitsihar (the capital of Heilungehiang), who have been under orders to oracuate that city' since September last are still in garrison with no apparent Prospects of moving yet awhile." This is how Russia is " evacuating " Manchuria.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.