Oct. 20.
Twat the Chinese set great store by face pidgin" is well known to everyone, but in the present struggle between Kiangsu and Chekiang this universal love for saving appearances has been east to the winds and avery unpleasant idea of the national character laid bare for the world to scoff at. That a man of the high standing and reputation of Lu Yung-hsiang should, aecomwanied by hiy stall, desert his soldiers and leave an army of Teaiterless men to fend for themselves is an incident almost without parallel in military annals, It is) true Napoleon slipped off secretly from Egypt Dut he left Kleber in command, "The men were not leaderless.
Again, in' the retreat from' Moscow, he left his troops and inurvied back to Paris but Ney, "the bravest of the brave," conducted the backward movement and prevented it from becoming a rout. Man and horse utterly exhausted; so begrimed with smale and covered with dust as to be unrecognizable, challenged by a sentry at the crossing of the Niemen. His proud answer "I am the real yuard of the Grand Army might fittingly have been' engraved on his tomb, His heroic life shed a lustre over the whole French army and his ruthless execution leaves a slur} on the memory of Contrast this with the record we have of the fortunes of the, troops who fought for Marshal La On September 18 the first anit second divisions, who were! opposing Sun Chuan-fang nea luchow, declared themselves: independent. They sold the pass to the enemy and allowed Sun to march unhindered to attack Sungsiang. General Wang Pin. who was in command there, did not even wait the arrival of his opponents but fled to the shelter fof the Settlement, leaving his men to fight or flee ax might seem best to them. With a shortened line Lu still declared his intention of giving battle. Than came the defection of the Ath Division and the blunt advice of its General to his Commander-in-Chief to throw up the sponge and flee. There is some excuse for Marshal Lu, who could only have continued' his resistance, after these displays of treachery: by his subordinates, had he been armed with the courage of despair. Instead, he followed the example of an ignoble host. of Chinese politicians and fled! to a neighbouring country, provided, if report speaks true, with the wherewithal to make exile not utterly. unbearable.
{t is not possible to state; definitely what were the motives
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.