It is well known throughout China that there are only two American gunboats, both needed on the upper Yangtze, which can get further inland than Hankow, on the Yangtze, or Canton, on the Pearl and West rivers, during low water. It is also known that these two boats on the upper Yangtze are badly designed and too slow for the work assigned them. It is also known that many of the others are entirely unfit for an emergency and should have been condemned and scrapped years ago. Not very long ago one boat which is supposed to give foreigners on the Yangtze a feeling of assurance and confidence was surveyed ani was pronounced unfit to lie alongside another ship, unfit to lie alongside -a dock, unit ie travel at more than eight miles an hour; and it was stated finally that gunfire from her decks would most assuredly wreck her.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.