Aug. 30.
ONLY once, one recalls, have} the youth of Shanghai been under. really heavy critical fire, and this, only directed upon a particular genus of the species, viz., that curious social product known as} the "lap dog." For some two or three weeks this unfortunate young man suffered metaphorical violence of all the wits and satirists in Shanghai, himself. scarcely raising one angry bark before retiring into a profound obscurity. Our young ladies, on the other hand, seem quite unable to escape the eye of the critic. Periodically, one and another arises in wrath and smites the feminine youth and beauty of, Shanghai, their dress, their amusements, their social deportment, their alleged passion for cocktails and cigarettes, being condemned with bell, book and candle, and their whole existence scarified when a particularly ruthless scribe comes along. In tthe past few days, an incipient renewal of the attack has been observed, but probably diminishing trade and the immanence of war (Chinese) has checked what. might have developed into a stream of lively letters to the editor.
This is no now thing, nor is it peculiar to Shanghai, The phenomenon, probably of Edenic origin, is common to all times and all places. Was there ever a time when contemporary young Jadies escaped the charge of falling short of the splendid and immaculate youth of their aunts and grandmothers? There is always) that reminiscent feminine ideal which they just miss. Readers of Mrs, Markham's "History of Sept. 1.
FOLLOWING our interview with Marshal Chi Hsieh-yuan of Nanking, we took steps to ascertain the views of Marshal Lu Yung-hsiang of Hangchow, and the results of our special! correspondent's visit to _his yamen appear to-day. As in the ease of Marshal Chi's explanation of his policy and position, the detached observer is bound to see a great deal of reason in what Marshal Lu says. The! question of the Fukien troops. admitted into Chekiang has, of course, never been more than a pretext. If there were not greater issues at stake, we may doubt. whether anything would ever have been heard of them.
But as a matter of dialectics, Marshal Lu's retort is certainly rather neat. As regards the Chibli party's peace terms, for Marshal Lu to accept them now, before the opposing forces are even in touch, would obviously be to accept defeat. And from his general bearing and manner of speaking it is clear that he does not think he need do that:
Just. yet. In this connexion Reuter's correspondent in Peking sends down by mail a supposed' calculation of the opposing! forces, which gives Marshal Lu 95,000 men and Marshal C only 42,000. This is an obvious invention of that _unblushing institution, the Peking Press Bureau, designed indirectly to represent Marshal Lu as the aggressor and strengthen the!
Chibi party's argument that! Marshal Chi acts only in self-defence. Putting all estimates! together, one hazards a guess that the two armies are imerically much of a muchness and we doubt if either exceeds!
France" (a volume probably not widely read in Shanghai), will perhaps remember the case of the 16th century Professor Etiquette who laid down as inviolable the rule that ladies might wipe their lips on the table cloth, but not their noses. That was simply a new fashion of which the professor disapproved, and no doubt he was equally dogmatic on the subject of powdered noses. The point is, that all these critieisms are relative. Things are condemned because they are new. There was a time when ladies who rode bicycles offended against all conservative canons of good taste and modesty; it was positively an outrage for any of them to be seen cycling along a country road in the company of young men, while to take tea at the village inn, in the same bold company, really extinguished all claims to i social decency. Critics change with the times, new fashions form the theme of new offences against propriety. What, one wonders, will the critic turn to when his present list of lapses falls into the same easy category of accepted things as those very daring Victorian bicycle vides?
Meanwhile to those fair ladies, 40,000 men. Of their relative equipment and efficiency, we have! no trustworthy information. Those who are convinced that!
Marshal Chi must have a "walkover" are probably not more numerous or positive than those who are sure Marshal Lu has nothing to fear.
As for unification by force versus unification by conference, the arguments on paper appear about equal; and if political partisans have been talking for' ten years past, as Marshal says, they have equally been fighting, as Marshal Lu reminds us. In China's long history, no dynasty has. ever established itself except by force, first in some corner, them gradually. expanding its power by dint of arms. But perhaps no true analogy can be drawn from perial days for these of sainted republican ideals. The. most interesting part of what! Marshal Lu says is that the will of the people must prevail and that the provinces should elect their representatives and Peking. accept them. Assurely if there is to be a republic in China, the voice of the people must prevail, as it does to a modified extent in who, not unnaturally perhaps, resent thus being held up to the searchlight of "Bachelors of 17" and "Fathers of Seventy," might Western democracies. If we ask why, in China, that voice has not' yet had the slightest influence on the course of affairs! we recall Smee's sage observation to Captain Hook, who complained that the crocodile, having de-youred.one of his hands, was always pursuing him to devour since the Manchus were driven out, why, indeed, it has scarcely even been raised—at least not above a whisper—the answer can only be that in the: West it-has
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.