14th March, THE news from Tokio that the Russians have evacuated Port Arthur was not officially confirmed last night. To those who have been painfully eandesvouring to believe that the repeated assaults of Admiral Togo's squadron have inflicted only trifling damage, he abandonment of afortitied harbour on which so much money has been lavished, will come us 2 shock. The precarious and really defenceless position of the place has, however, been better unders'ond by the Russian authorities, who have apparently retired before their retreat should be effectually cut off by the seizure of the railway behind them, It may be taken for granted that they have blown up the remains of their fleet and taken care to leave little beside the hills to the Japanese invaders. When the Russian Commander announced recently that the garrison would never surrender, he proclaimed to the world the precarious position of the place.
Retreat after all is a familiar tactic with the Russians who have ever been ready "reculer pour mieux sauter." The early retirement of the Viceroy to Moukden and the statement that the troops have been gradually withdrawn, even from along the Yalu, fits in well with the theory, based on an announcement from St. Petersburg, that Russian policy will be a practical withdrawal from the disputed territory, in the hope that Jupan wil! be too exhausted to follow up the pursuit, and in the knowledge that any aggressive blow against Russia itself will be difficult to deliver, Bat once Russia is out of Manchuria, other Powers besides Japan, tosay nothing of China, will surely have something to say that will cut off her hopes of getting back again in her own good time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.