September 8, 1000)
14
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE. REPORT.
SOUTH AFRICA.
181
The British public looks with some impatience at what it affects to con- sider the extreme prolongation of the war. DEWET and BOTHA rise before their eyes as obstinate guerillas, who refuse to accept the plain call of duty in not coming in at once to lay their arms; yet perhaps a little may be said in their favour; and had their hands been quite clean, even the British people would have come to look upon them as Compared with other wars of the same. brave men hopelessly following a lost cause. nature, the rapidity of Lord ROBERTS'S campaign is what. will strike the future student of history. It is not yet a full year since the Boers, fully prepared to undertake
ed on all sides, and, it was known, was iso- courage them in person. Prince CHING and | heighten the lights and shadows of a photo- lated from the ships at Taku and had a General WANG came to the rescue of the graphic landscape, where the difficulty in holding out. The French Set- Legation, and a pitched battle ensued, in is apt to overpower the really more pro- enhancement tlement had been well nigh destroyed, and which they were defeated. "Prince CHING minent features of the scene.
In the pho- big guns were being brought to bear on the " fell, it was supposed at the time he was tograph there is, however, something to go rest, while but a narrow river separated the "killed. WANG WENGSHAO, although on; the rays have made their mark on foreign quarter from the opposite bank, "a grey-haired old man 70 years old, valiant- the plate; though momentarily invisible, which was crowded with Chinese troops. "ly led his troops in person. He was killed they may be brought out by further deve- It was an anxious time, and rumours were
Towards sunrise it was evi-lopment. In the telegram, beyond the flying in the air. It required but a slight "dent that the ammunition of the Allies words actually sent, there is absolutely stretch of imagination to picture the destruc- "was running out.
A rush was nothing to guide the enhancer, and the re- tion of the beleaguered Legations, which were
'determined on. Thus standing together, sult is too frequently an entire misrepre- known not to be too well supplied with am- "as the sun rose fully, the little remaining sentation of the meaning which the sender munition. It was not above the ordinary "band, all Europeans, met death stubbornly, intended to convey. mental power of a Chinese telegraph clerk "&c." Now anyone acquainted with Chi- to supply the few details necessary to found a nese ways of thought will at once perceive gruesome tale. There was little confidence that this story could not have been concoct- felt in the chiefs of the Telegraph service, ed by a Chinaman, and that the culprit must
(Daily Press, 1st September.) or the officials in Shantung, so that when have been an European. However he may on the 16th July the pretended confession have been deceived by the first pretended approbation of the world at large, that As in all ages public policy has ruled, with of the telegraph clerk got to the ears of the telegram, which speaks badly for his acu- success alone justifies revolution; so has it press agents it found them only too well men, he certainly owed to no native source prepared to believe it. Unfortunately, like these jumbled details; which had he any defeat renders further resistance illegitimate. been accepted as a maxim that decisive a magpie who had stolen a spoon, their first acquaintance with the men and their sur- The world, however, has not yet been able instinct was to bury it; and it was carefully roundings he would at once have seen must concealed from public gaze at Shanghai till | be false.
to formulate a rule as to when the justify- Whence came this circumstantialing period of success has arrived in the first it had been flashed across the wires. account of an event that never occurred? case, nor, in the second, when the decisive When first the pretended news was Part of the story seems to have been ac-period of defeat has arrived when patriot given out at Shanghai, that the officials tually telegraphed from Shanghai, for, before gives place to guerilla, eventually to sink had received a telegram announcing the its appearance in the London Press, certain deeper to the level of the bandit. The old capture of the Legations and the death of of the supposed incidents had been confi-subject of dispute is being very clearly every European in the city, the first feeling dentially circulated; but the details were placed before our eyes in the case of South was one of stupor. So many circum- not published till the story had arrived in Africa. stances tended to show that such an event London, and as, according to the tale, every was within the bounds of possibility, that one concerned who was likely to tell for a short time the community felt bound what had really happened on the to believe it; but still as no one knew de-eventful day had perished, there would finitely whence the tale proceeded, and no have been no means of coming at the truth. light was being thrown upon it, a feeling of Dead men tell no tales, and the ingenious disbelief commenced to grow. It might be inventor thought he might as well have the true, all argued, but there was no reason to credit of being the historian. But who was believe, but much to the contrary, that any the inventor, who thus, lightly for the sake news of the alleged crime had been received; of a guinea or two, was content to plunge a nor did it strike any one that already the thousand families in mourning, and perhaps most bloodcurdling details had already been seriously compromise the nation? It is of invented, and sent to Europe. The story course unlikely it will be ever known, for however took so definite a shape that the every means will have been taken to extin- Consuls felt themselves called upon to de-guish the traces. One little affair, however, mand of SHENG Taotai, the Director of that attained some prominence five years Telegraphs, how such an important piece of ago may throw some light on the subject. artillery of the latest and most scientific offensive campaign, with arms and news had been received without their being The correspondent of a large news agency description, led by able and determined informed of it. SHENG indignantly denied had telegraphed some particulars about the men, and supported by the secret sympathy in the most direct language that such a operations then being conducted by the of at least one of the first-class Powers, telegram had been received by anyone; and Japanese against the Chinese fleet blockaded suddenly marched into the northern ex- the Consuls at once took steps to circulate within Weihaiwei harbour; the telegram tremity of Natal, and at once commenced his denial. Although personally the com- contained nothing sensational. It so hap- hostilities. The British had but a small munity had but little confidence in SHENG pened that somebody going by had heard army corps available, and had to retreat his statement was so explicit, and tallied so guns firing, and in telegraphing mentioned before superior numbers, and finally undergo well with the conclusions already arrived at the circumstance. The recipient was equal a very determined siege in Ladysmith. As by the better informed, that in a short time to the occasion. He concluded tha! the two in many other modern instances, both the excitement that had been caused ceased; messages referred to the same occasion, and sides had made the seige the crucial test and most people thought no more about it. made out an exciting detail of a naval battle, of the campaign; the Boers lost in the In this frame of mind people in China were as having been received from their Shanghai struggle, and the remainer of the campaign a few days after surprised at the receipt of a correspondent This precious concoction went against them. Beuter to the effect that the service, intend-was sent out as news to their clients, and times of almost every offence against the Though guilty at ed to be held in St. Paul's in memory of inserted in good faith. The Times, however, usages of civilised war, the Boers at other those slaughtered at Peking, had been post- had the courage to bring the affair into the times displayed a strange magnanimity; poned on account of the uncertainty attach- Law Courts, and obtain the production of and though personally they showed few in- ing to the affair, and this seems to have the original telegrams, which turned out to stances of marked courage, as a whole in been the first intimation of extraordinary have no reference to the supposed engage- tactical knowledge and perseverance they depth to which people's feelings had been ment; the telegrams had in fact been "fak- fully equalled their assailants. harrowed by the false information wired. ed" in London. We do not desire to accuse events they were unsuccessful, and after the At all But the most extraordinary part of the ex- the London Press of having wilfully distorted relief of Kimberley by the British troops traordinary tale remains to be told, and as or added to the telegrams sent, but it is well had perforce to begin a steady retrogres- the whole story is at last clearly known we known that there is a class of men attached sive march. Slowly but surely the British tell it in full. The Daily Mail boasts itself to most of the larger papers whose business it urmy pushed on. It was but a short time as one of the best informed papers in the is to amplify the telegrams received from till Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange world, and has its correspondents in all correspondents, themselves occasionally un- State, was occupied, and STEYN the President quarters of the globe. On the 16th July skilled in condensing messages. For the was a fugitive, but the country was not it published what purported to be a telegram most part these men discharge their task actually occupied for more than two months, received from its correspondent at Shanghai, carefully, but even when carefully done the when Harrismith, that had from the begin- giving the most minute and harrowing task of amplifying is a dangerous one, even ning of the war been a source of trouble to details of the last stand made by the when the artist is well acquainted with the English forces, was finally occupied, and Europeans at the British Legation. Daily the details of the particular locality. It with this the entire of the former Orange sorties, it said, were made by the besieged, is a by no means safe process to at-Free State passed under British rule, and had the effect of disheartening the teinpt, unless aided by personal knowledge Meanwhile Lord ROBERTS had invaded the Chinese, till Prince TUAN himself had to en- of the object portrayed, to attempt to Transvaal, and, as in the former case, had
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