"Lest We Forget"
We have a great deal more to remember, if we care to be vindictive, than the Mancha siege of the Lega:
and the various outrages of that date against the Legations which are commemorated by the famous inscription amongst. the bullet holes in the north-east comer: of the British Legation compound: "Lest we forget." That inscription is meant to remind us not only of the actual assault upon the Legations but of the desecration of the British cemetery outside. the city wall, of the abuse and torture of envoys and of other evidences of Chinese "aspirations" which ought. never to be forgotten by the world, We since have reason to think of Nanking and of the bones unearthed at Chuchow,—Chékiang, the bones of the Boxer martyrs that were dug up under the auspices of this precious "Nationalist" govern-tment and were hung on trees to be stoned by the folk who are sponsored by our foreigned trained agents of! Dr. 'u. These events have nationalism," Mr. Quo Tai-chi and! taken place in a shameless age. The! Boxer outrages took place era when there was. still some manhood left in diplomacy, There _is probably no man under fifty-five living to whom we can hope to appeal with a reminder of the Boxer episodes and the similar repetitions of these episodes during the past few montht. The younger folk think that it is quite consistent with the new standards of decency that graves of the martyred dead should be desecrated while we rub! official noses with those who assume: positions implying responsibility for rape, loot and murder. It did not used to be 80; and the poor little graveyard outside the west wall of Peking is still mute witness to the fact that white men were once willing to die to demonstrate that common decency stood higher it estimation than "cong nain, We do mot the young apologists for _vict-fous anti-foreignism to welcome! the appearance of these articles and we do not expect that the professional apologists for murder, blackmail, kidnapping and wholesale loot who' profess to represent. diploma tically the new idea in China, will put their "chops" upon these articles. But we do hope that the old fashioned folk who used to see Aiplomacy differently manifested will join us in rejoicing over these contributions and in celebrating the Mth of August as the day upon which—international intervention saved China from complete obliteration by the rescue of the besieged diplomatic body.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.