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"If it were possible but to confront every citizen with the spectacle of these 'puny, pale-faced, scantily-fed and badly-shod, these small and feeble folk, sitting damp and chill on the school benches,' there would be no need for further argument or appeal. If the comfortable and well-fed citizen could but feel for one single day what each of the 50,000 scholars feel who come to school habitually in want of food, it would not be with discussions of abstract theology that the time of the Board would be occupied. If we could but get the thin and pale-faced hungry child to the front, the Stingy Stepmother would disappear, snowed under, to use an expressive American phrase, by the ballot papers of an indignant electorate."-"The Story of a Stingy Stepmother," p. 388.

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The End of the Long

THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD.

LONDON, October 1, 1894.

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Ir is a weary prospect that our eyes this autumn. Heaven grant Peace? that the dismal forecast may not be fulfilled! But it is impossible not to feel a horrible foreboding that the war which is raging between Japan and China may mark the beginning of the long dreaded war which has been staved off for more than twenty years. In olden times Japan and China might have worried each other in Korea for a generation without even a rumour of their mutual butcheries reaching European ears. To-day all that has been altered. The newspaper and the telegraph have made even the remotest battlefield for the moment as visible as the central cockpit of Europe. Commerce has linked nation with nation so closely that every move in the Orient reacts upon the Stock Exchange of London and the markets of America; and no one can say how soon the conflagration in the farthest East may fire the powder magazines of the West. England, Russia, France and the United States are all deeply interested in the issue of the contest, and it will take wary walking on the part of the rulers of the world if they are not to stumble into the yawning gulf of

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simultaneously without giving up the ghost. The fact that the Tzar is ill, and seriously ill, is officially admitted, for the Oficial Gazette has announced that the Emperor never thoroughly recovered from his serious attack of influenza, and now nephritis (disease of the kidneys) has shown itself, necessitating his Majesty's sojourn in the warmer climate of the Crimea, by the advice of Professor Zakharin and Professor Leyden. Thither the Tzar has gone, and there all Europe hopes he may recover health and strength to fulfil for years to come his beneficent rôle of the Peace Keeper of the Continent. It is terrible to think what might happen if he were to disappear. Europe will never appreciate, till he is gone, what we all owe to that strong silent man, whose one idea is the maintenance of peace. We all hope that the most valuable life in Europe may be spared; but his indisposition perceptibly increases the dangers of impending war.

The Real Danger.

The peril which threatens the world is not due so much to the risk of local complications or diplomatic interventions as to the contagious influence of war. Ridicule it as we please, the war fever is latent in the blood of nations. The lust for slaying, like the passion for gaming, is one of the most deeply rooted of all our ancestral vices. A brilliantly successful campaign on land or sea has the same subtle intoxication for nations that a brilliantly successful coup on the gaming-table has on the spectators. When any one breaks the bank at Monte Carlo, M. Blanc rejoices, knowing well. that the spectacle of great winnings will far more than compensate him for his losses by the fascination which it will excite over those who usually refuse to stake a coin. The sensational victories achieved by the Japanese by land and sea, the spectacle which

they afford the world of the immense results that can be achieved, as it were, by a single throw of the dice upon the gaming-table of Mars, have enormously increased the explosiveness of the political atmosphere. The military class everywhere feels elated, the air is full of talk of belligerent "shop," the public mind is fascinated by the spectacle of the sudden decisiveness of the Japanese victories. There is probably not an officer in the armies and navies of Europe who does not feel his fingers itch to take a share in the great game of war, and there must be schemers -and adventurers not a few who feel their pulse beat quick at the object-lesson which the war affords of the splendid stakes that can be won at a stroke by an appeal to the sword. Since the German victories of 1870 there has been nothing quite so dramatic as the Japanese victories by land and sea. The human tiger has tasted blood once more, and the appetite grows with eating.

the World."

as a formal recognition of her rank. To-day she is everywhere recognised as one of the great Powerspossibly in the Eastern seas the greatest Power. They are no longer humoured or bullied, ridiculed or petted. They command the homage of respect, the recognition of awe. For Japan has shown that

THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN.

(From a photograph by H. Uyeno, Nagasaki.)

Look for a moment at the brutal truth

"Force Rules without blinking its significance. Japan by two bloody battles has won in a month what would not have been accorded her by a century of peaceful progress. Till yesterday she was merely an Asiatic State with whom, if our Government did conclude a new treaty, it was done more from a readiness to humour the vanity of her rulers than

she can fight and win. She has proved her capacity to wield the thunder hammer of the modern Thor, her generals can manœuvre many legions, her mirals can win naval battles; alike on land and sea she has smitten down with leaden hail and iron shell the hosts

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ad

of her enemies. And at once all nations bow down before the ap

parition of Japan militant, and admit with some dismay that a new and incalculable displacement of the centre of gravity has taken place, and that all political calculations will have to be reconsidered in the presence of this new factor in the politics of the world. Was King

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of China.

That, however, is not by any means the The Future only danger. It is the most immediate. The bold and brilliant aggression of the Japanese is acting on European militarism as brandy acts on a dipsomaniac; but even if this danger be overcome by a special dispensation of saving grace, there is another and vaster peril behind. The Japanese victories, especially if they should be followed up by an energetic attack upon the vitals of the Chinese Empire, may have consequences which will give a decisive cast to the history of the twentieth century. The Chinese Empire holds within its

confines nearly onethird of the human race. Its frontiers march with those of Russia, Britain and France. Its coast is fringed with European settlements. European missionaries and European traders are to be found in every province. The consequences of a sudden temporary weakening of the authority of the central Government over this enormous mass of

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THE EMPRESS OF JAPAN. (From a photograph by H. Uyeno, Nagasaki.)

immobile humanity are as difficult to estimate as the consequences of the more probable result-the rebirth of the Chinese Empire. It is impossible to believe that China will go to pieces. Empires that have lasted a thousand years do not break up so easily. A State that survived the Taiping Rebellion and the occupation of Pekin is not likely to go down under the Japanese invasion. But for good or for ill this war is certain to produce serious changes in the attitude of

in inflicting a
double defeat upon

her hereditary enemy, which has at least for the moment settled the fate of Korea. The Chinese General Tso, with 40,000men, entrenched himself in a strong position at PingYing, much as Arabi established himself at Tel-elKebir. Against him the Japanese Lord Wolseley, Field Marshal Yamagata, launched an army in three divisions, 40,000 strong. As long as the Chinese had only to face a front attack, they stood to their guns, but when the third division, making an arduous march across the hills, fell upon them in the rear, they broke and fled, 2,000 were killed, 14,000 captured, the rest were dispersed.

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General Tso's force, in fact, was wiped out just like Arabi's, and the Japanese General was left free to pacify Korea. On the same day the Chinese were landing 7000 men as reinforcements at the mouth of the Yalu, when the fleet that escorted the transport was attacked by the Japanese and practically destroyed as a fighting force. The papers have been full of the details of the greatest naval battle of the new era. The Chinese, under Admiral Ting,

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the loss of a single ship. The ruck of the Chinese fleet scuttled away in the darkness, leaving the Japanese masters of the

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sea.

The Lessons

It will be

of the Sea some time Fight. before the

full significance of the fight at Yalu is understood. But already some things are clear. First

and foremost is the old lesson that superior speed, which enables you to choose your own range to fight or refuse to fight at your discretion, is the most valuable factor in naval combats. Secondly, although both fleets were equipped with torpedoes, they were of no practical use in the action. The Japanese, when the fight was over, blew up a

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