The subject of the night life of Shanghai has during the past few days been fully ventilated, and s0, it may be allowed to one perfectly good veason for this, namely, that a Jeussion of this kind will invariably get off into side lines, and finally. everybody will forget where it menced. For instance one corn spondent wished us to sidetrack the main issue by wureh bazaar rafes with and when once this sort of thing' gets! going, i: is impossible to say where it is going to stop. We sce per fectly plainly that a number of people are insistent in their demand for a different set of condit while another holds equally that, denizens of Paris, London, or New! 'York would find the night'life here! intolerably dull og compared with! what they can obtain at Home, and they argue, why all this fuss here?' If those in charge ¥n London and these other cities do not see their way to curb similar conditions there, is it reasonable, they ask, to expect such action here, where it is much more difficult? Then a correspondent to-day points to a different side of Shanghai life, possibly with the idea of suggesting that only a minority are really interested in the night side. This is the conflict of opinion which {faces legislators all over the world in these days of change, and their Tot is an unenviable one, For instance a few years ago Councillor Clarke took exception to the charac-iter of the bathing costumes which London girls were wearing, but from effecting reform in the direction he wished, he tended to make them more so in the other} jway. Not so long ago pictures! were to be seen in the Home illustrated papers of policemen in the Bulgarian capital measuring tthe distance from the ground to the hem of a girl's skirt, the regulation Doing something like six inches, and looked pretty obvious that 'Bulgarian girls' did not appreciate this [consideration for their style of dress. And so the Business goes? on, taxing the ingenuity of the human mind to find a course which will traly represent the Public opinion of any community—Which is what the law should aim to represent. So, having had these interesting expressions of opinion regarding the night life of Shanghad perhaps better also leave it to the ingenuity of our local legislators to decide upon the Proper course to adopt.
A Northern Debacle correspondent. writing from Tsingtao in connection with the fall of Hsuchowfu into the hands of the southern troops says:—"We are very much inclined to the belief that the retreat was not due to the pressure of the attackers but to the complete loss of all discipline in the Shantang Army." And in connec tion with the same troops, he lsewhere' uses the ominous phrase "iE they have any fight left in them, The correspondent. who writes thi report is one of th best informed men on altairs in that part of the country, and, reading between the Tines, one gathers that the situation of the northern faction may at any moment become parlous, We know that Hsuchowfu' was well fortified and that there were strong en trenchments, and accordingly every thing. should have been in favour of the defending pasty. It dificult to conceive that the sou ferners could have brought to bear on this city such an overwhelming Superiority of guns. and men ax to overwhelm the. garrison—the state fof communications would not. per mit of its we are forced to cone clude that it was lack of discipline, fur correspondent" says—and means lack of morale—-which caused the defenders to. surrender their posts. "At the same time. the southern troops have crept towards chow, with apparently little stay them." Thin bodes no good for the northern cause, and it all comes as. we have pointed oat before, of hiving Important positions to: men for the typo of Chang Chung-chang, Tt in no use giving command. to men who do not possess the instincts leadership, and when wholesale deterioration occurs. "na "we are apparently "secing it," the. blame must be on the leader. The cit Cmatances of the cnae na recounted inthe fetter we "publish to-day suggest infinite" possibilities, with always the amending thought that the further an army gels away from its base. the more: vulnerable doen it become.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.