It is impossible to judge at the moment with any impartiality the rights or wrongs of any of the stories one has heard of heroism or baseness, although we should surely tend to exaggerate the former rather than the latter, and we may console ourselves for the present with the thought that al] events the tales of Japanese presence of mind and courage more than balance those of their cowardice and treachery.
Some days ago a foreign lady of my acquaintance, on being told by one of her friends that it was rumoured that several' Europeans had lost their. lives.at the hands of escaped Korean prisoners, asked in my hearing' whether it could be wondered at that a number of foreigners had declined to contribute a cent to any of the Japanese Relief Funds. How many people used equally specious arguments when confronted in England and America with appeals for the starving masses in Russia and Central' Europe. "Charity commences ati home" was the smug soporific for their consciences, but low few remembered not to rail and protest when money for their fellow countrymen out of employment was taken from them indirectly by taxation.
Selfishness is no doubt thd principal fault to be found in us all, and few could cast thd first stone": it ought to be possible nevertheless for Europeans in the Far East to realize that this is not an English, French, or American, but a Japanese national calamity, in which we Westerners have, through following our own interests in politics, business, or pleasure, a comparatively small share.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.