The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-24 00:00:00

FIIGII WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 11h. Om.—Afternoon, 11h. 27m.
To-MORROW.-Morning, —h. —m.—Afternoon, 12h. Om.

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THE SUN.
LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 24, 1880.

"News of battle ! News of battle !"—and from
China ! Imperfectly transmitted" though the
telegram is acknowledged to be at the Foreign
Office, the telegram received there last night from
Suez via Alexandria and Malta, it is sufficiently
explicit, and also, be it said, sufficiently unpre-
tentious in its character to be accepted as reliable.
It comes to us on the authority of the China Mail,
and under date the Ist of October. The last
accounts, it will be remembered by reason of their
seeming confusion, not to say contradiction at the
first blush, brought matters down—somehow or
other, comprehensibly or not—to the 26th of Sep-
tember. So that the intelligence now received
only affects to relate what has occurred, out there
at the seat of war, within less than a week, in fact
only five days afterwards. By that first of Oc-
tober then hostilities had recommenced in earnest.
That we can very well believe even upon
the assurance of a telegram " imperfectly
transmitted." It is added by the China
Mail, published at }long Kong, that not only had
hostilities recommenced, but that two skirmishes
had been fought with the Tartar cavalry, and that
so far were our troops from having there, in
the ordinary acceptation of the phrase, "caught a
Tartar," that the Tartars themselves had been
resolutely repulsed. The Allied forces, it is further
remarked by the telegram, are, according to those
last advices, in hostile position before Pekin—not
near Pekin observe, but actually at its very walls,
ready for the assault, prepared for all emergencies,
fur its capture or its capitulation. Unaccustomed
thus to have occasion to deal with a foreign enemy
in arras before the very gates of its capital, the Im-
perial Government of China had seemingly failed as
yet in all3' way to realise the perils and difficul-
ties of its situation when thus threatened. Inso-
much that at •
hlle we are informed that negotia•
tions had been again opened by the Chinese, it is
expressly added by the telegram that these nego-
tiations, or rather, we presume, those attempts at
negotiations had been commenced in a manner in
no way supplicatory ! This is a reminder to us, and
a very timely reminder, that the period of half mea-
sures in dealing with the
Chine
se has gone by
altogether. Conviction must now. be carried
to
their minds that the Allied powers of "Western
Europe are no longer to be trifled with
diploma-
tically with impunity. Especially is it advisable
that this conviction should be carried for once and
for all home to the minds of the Chinese and
their Government with reference, to Olin_
selves. England has so much at stake in
those seas, she has already a commerce so very
considerable and important with China, particu-
larly with the southern coasts of that great Empire,
and that same commerce is giving auguries every
year of such rapid and remarkable development,
that it is essential to our interests to put an end
definitively to the preposterous notions hitherto
manifestly entertained at Pekin that nothing
serious can ever come of it to the Chinese be the
English ever s o much insulted, deceived, and out-
raged. We h aye had every provocation to this
wur, whatever rimy be thought by the captious in