[January 30, 1896.
RI
Dess.
MANDARIN ARROGANCE
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
In
was
this conclusion, however he sadly mistaken. The Kirin authorities Very unteachable is the Chinese mandarin. refused to sanction the sale, the case was He learns nothing by experience, and referred to the British Minister, and by humiliation seems but to cystallise his him to the Foreign Office, who insisted on conceit and intensify his arrogance. The its being ratified. The Kinin officials were, national vanity endows him with a resilience however, still obdurate, and not only de- that enables him to rise gaily from the dust clined to ratify the sale but insisted upon into which he has (metaphorically) been SUNG appearing before them. In Novem- kicked and assume even added supercilious-ber, unfortunately for himself, SUNG returned The lessons taught him by the to Kirin, and last month he was haled Anglo-French expedition, when Peking was
before the Prefect, who having first soundly occupied and the Summer Palace given to rated him for selling his land to the Kweitze, the flames as punishment for treachery, have ordered him to be disgracefully bambooed long since faded from the tablet of his under circumstances which degraded him, memory, or if not wholly erased therefrom, in the eyes of the public, to the rank of a Not satisfied with this severe he but remembers to forget. If the recollec- criminal. tion of these disasters had really grown dim punishment, this Jack-in-office ordered his there might perhaps be some excuse, for victim to sell his land to his neighbour or to another generation has arisen since then, himself, who was ready to do anything to one that knew not General HOPE GRANT keep it out of the hands of Dr. GREIG. That and has had no actual acquaintance with gentleman, who was present in Court, had the night of European arms. But it is only to submit to personal abuse from the a few months since the people and especially irascible Prefect, who openly referred to
him as Kao Kweitze [Devil Greig].
were
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ADMIRAL MAKAROFF'S COLLISION BUFFER.
Admiral MAKAROFF deserves sincere thanks for the attention he has devoted to the problem of minimising the effects of collisions at sea and the efforts he is making to press the subject on the attention of the public. His Excellency's address at the Chamber of Commerce on Thursday afternoon was followed with much interest by the large number of gentlemen who assembled to hear it, and the general feeling, we believe, was that the ideas advanced were sound in prin- ciple. Mr. WHITING, Naval Constructor, in a speech made during the course of the dis- cussion which followed the Admiral's ad- dress, said that the subject had occupied the attention of shipbuilders ever since ships have been built of iron, but it had hitherto been approached from just the opposite direction to that from which Admiral MAKAROFF approached
it; for whereas Admiral MAKAROFF sought to
he official class in North China
introduce a buffer on the nose of the literally quaking with fear lest the vic The matter has not ended at this point; striking ship it had ordinarily been torious battalions of the Japanese army of the British Government cannot submit to attempted to devise a scheme whereby orepation in Manchuria should march be thus derided by a paltry provincial offi- the ship struck would be proof against upon the capital and encamp in the precincts cial. The British Consul at Newchwang disastrous results after collision. There we of the Prohibited City. Very low indeed has been instructed to go to Kifin and insist have a clear statement of the problem and had China then fallen when the EMPEROR upon reparation for these injuries and its present position. The attempts made had to despatch his most trusted Councillor insults, and he was to start with Lieut.
to protect the ship struck have not been in hot haste to Japan to sue for terms of QUAYLE, of H.M.S. Rattler, for Kirin, a
barren of results, watertight bulkheads The degradation of the Central journey of some three hundred miles, on the having on many occasions saved a vessel peace. Kingdom seemed, at least to Western eyes, 2nd Jan. Mr. HostE had no pleasant from going to the bottom. We have tol then tolerably complete. Ignominiously journey and no very satisfactory task before
now, however, apparently reached the limit heaten both on land and sea in every him. With no material force behind him of advance in that direction and still engagement fought, with her principal he will have to try and overawe a set of the danger of loss of life and property strongholds in the possession of the enemy, truculent officials far from the capital and by collision remains truly appalling. It is her fleet destroyed or captured, and her still more remote from a centre of British time, therefore, that the problem was ap armies reduced to a rabble rout of de- power. If he succeeds in compelling the proached from the other side and an attempt moralised coolies, incapable of making the Governor of Kirin to do justice he made to prevent the cutting of the skin of a feeblest stand against the disciplined soldiers will have indeed accomplished a feat.
ship when struck by the bow of another. The Kirin officials are not of Japan, China presented about as abject a
only This Admiral MAKAROFF proposes to do by spectacle as could well be imagined. Peace furiously hostile to foreigners but they are affixing to every ship a false nose above the has only just been concluded, a great in-apparently recalcitrant to Peking. Dr. water line, so that when a collision takes demnity agreed upon and a valuable island-
place the energy of the blow shall be ex- a kingdom in itself-ceded to the conquerors,
pended in breaking and doubling up the yet we find the Chinese mandarin, in Man-
false nose instead of in cutting into the other churia itself (the main seat of the war),
ship. The question suggests itself, however, assuming all the old insolence to foreigners
whether a false nose strong enough to with- which has ever distinguished him.
stand heavy weather could be made so col- lapsible that it would not break into the other ship's side on impact. To that the answer, we think, must be in the affirmative. Admiral MAKAROFF did not mention of what dimen- sions he would propose to make the false nose, but naturally it would be of the smallest dimensions compatible with efficiency, so as to offer the least possible resistance to wind and waves, and at the same time in- stead of a sharp cutting edge like that of a vessel's real stem it would present a rounded surface, so that on coming into collision it would at once begin to bend inwards. There ought to be no mechanical dif- ficulty in constructing such an appendage to a ship and making it strong enough to resist wind and waves and at the same time pliable enough to double up when subjected to the force of a collision. A substantial fender of the ordinary de- scription interposed at the moment of collision would no doubt often prevent the piercing of a vessel's side, and the permanent attachment recommended by Admiral MA- KAROFF, filled, as he proposes, with fibrous material or gutta percha, would reduce the danger of foundering by collisions to a minimum or perhaps even remove it alto- gether. It is to be hoped the Board of Trade will take the matter up and subject the invention to the test of experiment. Possibly modifications in detail may suggest themselves in practical working, but the general idea expounded by Admiral MA-
The Newchwang correspondent of our Shanghai morning contemporary, in a letter, reproduced in our columns on Saturday, Lives a narration of recent events in Kirin which most forcibly illustrates the above conclusions. Some five years ago, Dr. GREIG, an eminent medical missionary, who had won the esteem of the natives by his work of mercy and love, was set upon and shamefully maltreated by some Manchu soldiers belonging to the bodyguard of the Tantar General at Kirin. Having first cruelly beaten him they tied him up by the humbs, in which position of torture they Se him, to be found subsequently in an Baconscious condition. For that outrage, after long parleying and the usual haggling, the Chinese Government ultimately agreed to pay $5,000 as compensation for injuries de and a further sum of 8950 to purchase a site for a new hospital. In pursuance of the agreement thus arrived at, Dr. GREIG proceeded in 1894 to purchase a site, which he obtained from a native of superior stand- ing uqined SUNG TS'UN-LI, and early in 1895 this man went with the purchaser to the British Consulate at Newcliwang and there filed an affidavit setting forth that he sold the land voluntarily and of his own free will. The title deeds were then deposited in the Consulate, and as the sale had previously been specially sanctioned by the Chinese Government, Dr. GREIG naturally imagined that no difficulties would follow.
GREIG and his colleague Mr. CRAWFORD are reported not to be safe from molestation, and the officials are quite capable of stirring up the populace to commit a fresh outrage. Up to the trial of Suve for selling the land, the populace had continued to show a friendly demeanour to the missionaries, and the only hostile class was the mandarinate. But in every Chinese city rowdies can be readily collected, and we shall not be sur- prised to hear that, while Consul HOSIE was on his way to Kirin, a mob had been incited to outrage on the missiouasics. Whether or not this should prove to be the case, a grievous insult has been cast by the Kirin Prefect in the teeth of the British Government, an insult that cannot be tamely borne. We earnestly hope that Lord SALISBURY will not only insist upon the sale of land by SUNG to Dr. GREIG being formally and publicly ratified by the Kirin authorities, but that he will also demand the punishment and degradation of the Prefect. That insolent scoundrel should receive the punishment he meted out to the innocent SUNG, who should be prescut in Court to witness the abasement of his unjust judge. The Governor of Kirin ought also to be dismissed from his post for not promptly superseding the Prefect, and the provincial treasury should be compelled to hear all the costs of the Consul's long journey thither from Newchwang. It is only by bringing home the effects of their insolent conduct to them personally that the mandarins can be taught respect for the peaceful foreigner.
Admiral Makaroff left for Europe, via America, by the P. M. steamer City of Peking on Saturday.
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