'15, M. Herriot defended himself from the charge of having done Mr. Ramsay MacDonald on the octo Chequers. "They gave me," he fell, I ask pardon of the Queen's her bed." This incident is replete with suggestions for a vast number of kind-hearted people who go out of their way to provide their guests with quarters in which the furniture, chile delighting the eye, conduces to bodily comfort to the same degree as did the appliances of the Inquisition. Mapy, convinced that a hard bed is essential to longevity, provide one which at once suggests Tues the heated stone couch of northern China. As for chairs, fortunate is hho who finds one into which he may relax with a grunt, without shatter. ing the spindle-like supports. For some occult reason, it is always when one has been dragged from a comfortable hotel, where he might come and go as he liked and where, if things didn't suit him he mis safely raise a rumpus about of some friend, ly encounters a yom such as we hint at. Here, he may neither sit nor sleep in comfort, and the worst of it is his goings and comings must now be adjusted to the convenience of his host or hostess, Numberless treatises have been written on the art of being a guest. Their authors are quite correct. It does take an exceptional nature to suffer the tortures of the average guest chamber and successfully conceal these before his hosts. What prevaricators politeness makes of us all!
So This is China!
Regarding anything tha: happens!
ought long ago to have ceased to in Warfare in China everybody have any surprise, In a bombardment of Canton about the middle of last century the "Times" corres pondent of that date stated that the principal effect it seemed to have was that the beggars very quickly left their places of shelter and proceeded to search for pieces of shell easing in the hope that they could ultimately sell them to. the advantages of their pockets. It is which we wish to. mention to-day, by no means the same sort of thing
but one that shows what unexpected. effects phases of military activity. have in this country. When tha Southern armies were threatening. Tsinan at the beginning of the month, Chinese merchants in Tsing-tne were distinctly alarmed for the safety of their property and goods, and foreign insurance men being asked to quote The first clash in Ts even more desirous to get themselves covered; but the moment the ow Japanese contingents arrived in Tsingtao not a solitary bit of business could be done in that direction. Apparently they recognized that with a foreign force in port there could be no looting, and in this connection an interest-
1 Report reached Tsingtao. It was actually stated in Chinese circles that merchants and bank: in Tsinan regarded the presence of Japanese force there as a beneficient act of providence, otherwise they anticipated all their wealth: going into the rapacious maw of! the military. Some may consider this far-fetched, but if so it would be pertinent to inquire what the real outlook "f the Shanghai mer: chants regarding the arrival of the Defence Force here was, Not so greatly different, perhaps.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.