The soothsayers in China have been particularly busy all this spring foretelling turmoil and rapine and, if one is to judge by the native press and the morose forebodings of Chinese friends of all ranks and degree, the soothsayers are being given exceptional credence. This is the last year of a cycle, our most intelligent friends point out, and something momentous is bound to happen. The fact that everybody believes it is likely to be enough to set trouble brewing in many quarters where no trouble was intended What the fortune tellers are all saying is that this is going to be China's worst year in modern history. There will be peace nowhere, but blood and fire everywhere. And then in the wane of the year, when China is bled to exhaustion and almost totally consumed in her own fires, things will take a turn for the better and from thence forward will continue to improve with amazing rapidity until there is peace, order and prosperity everywhere. At the back of all minds seems to be something like the figure of the Phenix. This 1s the line of prophesy generally; some prophets are more concrete.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.