1 travelled, too, with a mi and his wife, a quiet Scandinavian 'They had come direct from 85 days' siege near the Kalgan front, and could tell. me how many thousands shells had fallen in the city. "'Thav} could have left, early on, but they stayed because the white woman was the only being with any medical training'—six months! nursing! "inthe ity, and she tended, as best she could, thousands of sick and wounded. "Refugees flocked to their mission compound, and when they realized there was no material help there, they stayed and berwed for the Light that lit the foreigner's way.
The church was besieged throughout the city for comfort. "We were the only stay those people had," he said. to. me, with alittle Chinese ein of four on his knee, one of the: many abandoned whom they had had to cate for. China, however, is continent, and mercifully {troubles are localized. Her troubles locate trade, and hurt the few, comparison." Tt is not unsafe on the whole to live in China og many fat home suppose. China's militarists fare her curse, Yet, when they do Gnally seize a province, if they ate far-sighted enough, "they govern reasonably well, as for Chang Tso-lin in Manchuria, Sun Chuan-fang round about Shang hai. That is, until some subordinate bought over, or a neighbouring militarist becomes envious of fat revenues.
The Real Problem But the real struggle in China today is between the old and the new, it will take a generation solve. The dethronement of the Dynasty in 1911 was but a symp tom of a greater revolution in thought and modes of life." Railways, motors, aircraft have dawned gradually on our horizon, and they are ast: fares fe ce ways thought. But in China they are suddenly introduced to a people whose background is totally unprepared.
The mass of Chinese people, for instance, have never doubted that the circumambient air is pervaded throngs of spirits, chiefly evil, ready to work every imaginable hari a comnion saying.
Your grocer Peking has 2 mirror the|above his door to avert their influence. A rich Chinese in a concession may build a fine foreign palace for himself, with a bathroom.
each bedroom, electric chandeliers glittering from every ceiling, and. keep two liveried chauffeurs for his Rolls-Royce. His brother, building Chinese house in the country, will only start on it the day pronounced lucky bya paid diviner or wizards: He will sacrifice a cock on the fsvound to appease the uneasy earth spirits, whose home he will be di turbing. Each room will be built south or north, or a little to east jor west, ao the diviner deems least likely to attract the flying demons, and the heights of his roofs will be similarly decided, Strange Cent Perhaps the strangest contrast th its huge foreign built buildings in the Jo beatinggare carried on in little huts, lo and gold-'There, "too, Chang Tso-lin has a "model" arsenal where 10,000 Chinese workmen are learning to manu facture modern explosives, while their old fathers turn the sod with oxen and ploughs of a very ancient type.
It is partly this struggle between. old and new that is responsible for the present anti-foreign feeling at 'Wanhsien. 'The Anglo-Saxon races Ihave, to their credit, refused to carry the troops of rival militarists in their ships. General Yang Sen, an adherent of Wu Pei-fu's, was evidently hard pressed, for' he defied [these international agreements, His soldiers tried to boord two British merchant vessels, the captain rightly refused to carry them, and in the struggle some of Yang Sen's men were drowned. Yang Sen ther upon seized two other British boat and it was in rescuing the Brit officers imprisoned on board these that our gallant naval men lost their lives.
Yang Sen's act was pure piracy; and the Chinese populace have not Joined the outcry against the Bri-Yish for love of him. But they have a quarrel against all steamers, For centuries, with infinite toil, they have conquered the Yangtsze with their great heavy Junks, Now they see their living endangered by the advent of steam, and their hearts fare sore. For the same cause the water-carriers of Peking went on strike lately, refusing to bring, water to any street where a single house. holder was parleying for pipes and faucets from the City Waterworks Company,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.