May 2, 1904.]
cottages, without going inside. They might almost be likened to wild beasts. They live like shepherds, and lie down in the field. They dan therefore travel fifty miles a day without difficulty, and it is hard work to capture them. Their horses are often fed with rice instead of proper food. The speed of the horses is not much superior to that of the Japanese horses; but the Cossacks can travel faster than the Japanese over the hills, through forests and over rough country. The Cossacks are timid, more afraid of death than was expected. This view has been confirmed by several reports received from scouts. During the engagement at Teishu on the 28th ult. the Cossacks were fully aware of the inferior position of the Japanese, but they utterly failed to take the aggressive. After two hours' firing they retreated suddenly on seeing the advance of the Japanese Infantry. Lieutenant Yagami with twenty men was able to hold his position against seventy or eighty Russians during the engagement. This may be regarded as proof of the Japanese soldiers' courage; but on the other hand it shows the Cossacks' lack of a warlike spirit.
WARNING TO VESSELS BY RUSSIA.
The following information, received officially, regarding action taken or contemplated by the Russian military and naval authorities in the North. is notified in a Government Gazette Extraordinary-
1. Submarine mines having been laid at the mouth of the Liao River, vessels entering the port of Newchwang are required to observe the regulations the Russian authorities have enacted.
2. If vessels do not show lights within the fighting sphere by night or flags by day, or fail to reply when warned by a gun to answer questions, they will be treated as enemies, and sunk.
RUSSIA'S STRENGTH at port ARTHUR AND VLADIVOSTOCK.
The following report about the strength of the Russian land forces in Port Arthur and environs is the latest to hand :- Third Infantry Brigade
Seventh
"
One Company Cossacks
Two Companies Artillery...
8,000 men *,000 150
Two Battalions Sappers and Miners 1,000
Heavy Artillery-one brigade...
Half Battalion Sappers and Miners Torpedo Corps-one Company
11
600
"
2,400
300
>>
200
+
Total 20,650
In Vladivostock it is stated that there are at the present moment 8,000 infantry, consisting of the 29th, 30th, 31st, and 32nd regiments, besides a brigade of heavy field artillery.
THE FIRST ACTS OF HOSTILITY.
A report from the local officials at Wiju to the Corean Government shows that Russian troops began to cross the Yalu into Corea on the 2nd February and fom that date until the 15th February the number crossing totalled 4,500. Three thousand, of these remained at Wiju, 1,000 moved to Chhosan, 108 miles above Wiju, and 500 proceeded towards Anju. Thus it appears that Russia commenced acts of war four days before the rupture of diplomatic relations by Japan.
THE "PETROPAVLOVSK
"
LOSSES.
CHINA OVERLAND) TRADE REPORT:
Mr. Kreather, of the Russo-Chinese Bank, | has been appointed French Consular Agent at Newchwang
H.M.S. Espiegle's departure chwang was the signal for some cordial ex- from New-
pressions of regret on the part of all nationali- ties, as the best of relations has been preserved between the Russian authorities and community and the gunboat. Administrator, and all the Russian authorities M. Grossi, the Civil
took leave of the boat in person. She would doubtless have left earlier, but it is believed she remained on until the qualified acceptance of Martial law by Great Britain was indicated, and also to emphasise the fact that Newchwang is still a treaty and not a Russian port. Russis has given assurances of consideration for British interests in the port which the British Govern- mont have accepted, and that at the conclusion of the war full treaty rights shall be restored.
It is now stated-the source being an Italian Press agoncy-that in the late successful attack on the Port Arthur squadron, ending in the destruction of the Petropavlovsk, the Japanese fleet was concealed among the islands of the Miaotao Group, in the Chili Straits, and intercepted the retreating Russians.
L'Echo de Chine has a toleram from its Chefoo correspondent, stating that the Japanese have disembarked troops at Kinchou to the west of the Yalu. The telegram is somewhat puzzling since no Kinchou is known in the immediate neighbourhood of the Yalu. An important city of that name is situated at the head of the Liaotung Gulf, in close proximity to the railway, and this would be a good deal west of the Yalu.
HONGKON LEGISLAT IVE
COUNCIL.
held on the 26th ult. in the Council Chamber. A meeting of the Legislative Council was
Present:-
HIS EXCELLENCY THE OFFICER AD MINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT. F. H. MAY. C.M.G.
HIS EXCELLENCY MAJOR-GENERAL VIL- LIERS HATTON, C.B. (Commanding the Troops). Hon. A. M. THOMSON (Acting Colonial Secretary).
Hon. Sir H. 8. General.
Hon. L. A. Treasurer).
Hon. A. W. BREWIN (Registrar-General). Hon. Captain L. A. W. BARNES-LAWRENCE R.N. (Harbour Master).
BERKELEY (Attorney
M. JOHNSTON (Colonial
Public Works).
Hon. P. N. H. JONES (Acting Director of
Hon. Sir C. P. CHATER. C.M.G. Hon. Dr. Ho KAI, C.M.G. Hon. WEI A YUK.
Mr. R. F. JOHNSTON (Clerk of Councils).
FINANCIAL.
The ACTING COLONIAL SECRETARY laid on the table Financial Minutes (Nos. 24 to 26) and moved that they be referred to the Finance Committee.
The ACTING COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
The Tokyo authorities have received particu- lars regarding the casualties on the Russian flagship Petropavlovsk, which was sunk on the 13th inst:-The Commander-in-Chief; 3 senior flag officers; 10 junior flag_officers; Vice-Com- | ed, and the motion was agreed to. mander; 13 Lieutenants; 1 Chaplain and 596 sailors, including petty officers, were killed. The Commander and one officer escaped, serious ly wounded. Grand Duke Cyril, 5 officers and 33 petty officers and sailors also escaped, but all were more or less injured.
The ACTING COLONIAL SECRETARY laid on
the table the Report of the Finance Committee │(No. 5) and moved its adoption.
The ACTING COLONIAL TREASURER second-
MI-CELLANEO "S. Extra sentries have been guarding the Russian Legation at Peking lately.
A Tokyo telegram states that Lake Baikal is already opened and steamers have been able to cross. If true, says the P. & T. Times, this is unusually early, and in view of the present weather we hardly credit it. It is possible that the ice-breaker has been at work.
The Russians are buying up all the obtain- able coal in Fengtien, being willing to pay even
PEAK RESERVATION.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL moved the third reading of the Bill entitled an Ordinance for the Reservation of a Residential Area in the Hill District.
|
The ACTING COLONIAL SECRETARY second- ed, and the motion was agreed to and the Bill passed.
The Council adjourned sine die.
FINANCE COMMITTEE. A meeting of the Finance Committee was held after the Council, the Acting Colonial Secretary (Hon. A. M. Thomson) presiding.
The following votes were approved :
331
urinal on the northern side of the hill close to the upper tram station at the Peak.
TREASURY EXPENSES.
The Officer Administering the Government recommended the Council to vote a sum of following Staff required from 1st May to 31st $3,280 in aid of the vote, Treasury, for the December, 1904, to collect Crown Rent, etc., in the New Territories:
Clerk at $600 per annum
'PERSONAL EMOLUMENTS.
~~$400
For Taipo † 2 olerks at $600 per 2 clerks * at $480 per annum each= 640
For Taipo † 2 clerks at $480 per
annum sach...
annum each...
OTHER CHARGES.
800.
640
-$2,480
Conveyance Allowance-Collector-8240 7 clerks
#
Total
560
-$ 800
$3,280
(8144) ander vote Treasury not now required.
Temporary Shroff ($480) and Assistance
tary's Office not now required.
+ Shroff ($540) under vote Colonial Secre-
CLEANSING TANKS.
The Officer Administering the Government $5,100 in aid of the vote Public Works, Extra- recommended the Council to vote a sum of ordinary, to meet the cost of supplying and erecting sixteen tanks in Nos. 9 and 10 Health Districts, Victoria.
This was all the business.
IN
COREA.
(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
SEOUL-A STUPENDOUS CESSPOOL.
: Seoul, 16th April.
The streets of Seoul are covered several feet thick with the accumulated filth of centuries, and now the Corean authorities have suddenly started trying to clean the place completely in a day or two. It has dawned on them that they ought to assume an appearance of modern civili- sation now, and make some show of emulating the Japanese. In fact, the Coreans are begin- ning to feel ashamed of their dirt în presence of so many strangers. There have never been drains in Seoul. In several parts of the town old. streamlets still survive, struggling down from the adjacent hills to the big river, struggling through huge superincumbent accumulations of rubbish and garbage, the deposit of centuries of lazy life. These poor little hillside streamlets degenerate into a sort of substitute for drains, and they are in fact almost stagnant, almost waterless ditches of filth. They might be called drains, perhaps.
ฟ
see
But generally speaking, Seoul is in about the condition one would expect to find in an undrained, well-stocked farmyard that had thousand not been cleaned out in any way for a years. The Corean seems to say, drowsily, Why trouble to carry rubbish away?
Leave it alone, it soon gets trodden into the ground, and you will never it again. Then you save so much carrying." So where it happens to fall. A walk through Seoul all matter which is not wanted" simply stays
is a wade through orange-peel, fish-bones, eggshells, rotten cabbage, dead rats, mangy dogs alive in more ways than one-these are a few of the predominant features of the Corean capital.
Buildings there are almost none at all. There are mat-huts by the million. It really must be the greatest collection of pigsties in the world. I have been a good deal in the interior of China, and I thought some of those towns reached the very top notch of putridity, but I apologise to them.
Seoul is, in short, a city of hovels. The Imperial Palace would be considered not very glorious for a district magistrate in the pros- perous sections of China. The great Temple of Heaven, which I suppose is the No. 1 josshouse of Cores, is shabby and bare and discreditable compared with the Man Mo Temple in Hong- kong. The foreign legations, two little hotels, of the railway-station, and possibly three or four the vote, Public Works, Extra- | other foreign buildings, are all right, and in the ordinary, to meet cost of erecting a public Japanese quarter there is a fairly good little
PUBLIC CONVENIENCE,
a fair price for hard coal. The Tartar General | recommended the Council to vote protests against such supplies being furnished, ❘ $2,000 in aid but his protests are of course in vain.
The Officer Administering the Government
Sum
1