Definite information is still lacking as to when we shall see Marshal Joffre here, but no event has caused more pleasurable anticipation in the community for a very long time. Many of us can recollect the eagerness with which the hero-worshippers gazed upon Lord Kitchener as in a blue lounge suit and a bowler hat he drove through our highways and byways in pur-Suit of rare porcelain. And great though his achievements had been up to that lime, they could not compare with what he subsequently did nor with the influence a man like Marshal Joffre has had upon the history of the world. In connexion with the First Battle of the (Marne, the initial test between the opposing armies, Jofire's name goes down among the immortals. While it was Foch who struck tae decisive blow at the German centre, it was Joffre who produced the fresh armies which first of all threatened to outflank von Kluck and then pieced Foch in a position to make is great onslaught. The man who could successfully carry the burden of armies on his shoulders in these days when so much was in the realm of theory and untested in practice, could not but be a great man even among the stalwarts of a great time such as that, and his expected presence in Shanghai gives visions of a gorgeous fete such as only the world's leaders msy command.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.