The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-28

.h' SsihAu- taNtFctaNh' AhSy WSss -
 expert that in the last war with France
 they gave the tri-color an ignominiou'
 thrashing at Tamsui. Though the gov
 ernor's forces on paper have been re-
 ported as high as 50.000, 1t may be
 questioned if he ever had under armi
 at any one time over 10000 troops. foi
 Tamsui has as deadly a climate as
 Panama. u Han Chang. viceroy oi Quangtung and brother of u Hung
 Chang, the premier, has done good
 work in the same field, He has an
 army and navy in south China. and
 manages both with rare ability for e
 Chinese official, Ills soldiers serve linn.
 ited terms. and as fast as their term ex-
 pires their places are filled with raw
 recruits. At whampoa. near Canton,
 he has a large and nourishing naval and military college. where the best
 native and foreign talent Is employed
 In the faculty. The progress made Is shown by the fact that many of the graduates have done special work for
 the viceroy, such as the manufacture of cordite and other new explosives. the analysis of complex organic com
 pounds. and the planning of forts. mines. and men-of-war. in which they displayed ability and scientific knowl- edge.
 The other prominent leaders Of the Chinese nation are very much like their parents and grandparents before them. arrogant. self-satisned. conser- vative and antiquated They look with unspeakable contempt upon the for eign devil" and actually believe that a regiment of braves equipped with spears. banners and tomtoms. Is more than a match for European army supplied with magazine rifles and Maxim guns.
 The four classes described make up the fighting material from which John Chinaman must draw h!s armies. They are an unorganized force. Not only Is there no general organization of these millions of potential warriors. but there is no way of bringing them together no central rendezvous or headquarters where they can meet. no national depot of arms or equipments for them, to draw from. and no com misarat to provide for their physical wants In the event of their assembling
 The real army Of China is compara- lively small and insignificant power A late return from the eighteen pro- vinces published in the shen-pao, a leading Chinese newspaper. places the number of the troops In actual service including sick men, men on leave, de- tails, and soldiers on garrison and frontier duty. at 65O,000 men. The Kwang-poa, the leading Chinese news paper in Canton, disputes these figures, saying that they are the same as have annually appeared for twenty years, and that the actual number of men un- der arms Of all sorts in the eighteen provinces Is about 3O0,000
 Of this army, whatever may be its actual number. not more than 10000 have received European training. and not more than 6O.OO0 are armed and equipped in proper fashion, Of there mainder, 50O00 are armed with Spring.
 flelG muskets, Imuzzle-loading rifles, worn-out Remingtons, condemned Win rhesters, second and third hand Mar tini-Henrys, and the cast-off wea pons of European and American armies.
 The rest of the force, whether it be 100 or 5o0.000 nen.are armed with
 ma atchlocks, 1lmt!and-steel euns. .blunder rbusses, Slngals, bows and ar- rows, spears, pole axes, pitchforks, tridents, morgensterns, fails, battle axes, long swords and shields. A large and bulky portion of their arma- ment consists of flags, banners, pla- cards, gongs. cymbals, tom-toms. drums, grotesque helmets, masks and properties such as are seen in western countries only in Christmas panto- mines. These are an organic part of Chinese equipment, and are used to frighten the foe. In Mongolian strat. esy great general marches his men to and fro before the enemy several times prior to engaging in action in order to strike consternation into their hearts. Nine-tenths of the officers of the imperial army would try to do the same thing to-day when about to at- tack an European army equipped with the latest death-dealing inventions.
 This estimate of 10000 soldiers, thor oughly drilled and thoroughly equip ped. errs. if at all, in favor of the Flowery empire. The tendency of care full observers is toward d lower total They base their calculations upon what they see at the various ports along the coast. Thus, for example, at Woosung, near Shanghai, the soldiers have mod ern rifles of some sort, but keep them locked up, and drill with old fashioned muskets. At Ning-po d battalion of braves some 300 in number practices with bows and arrows. At Tamusi and Keelung the troops are provided with discarded Winchesters and Spring field .muskets of the 1850 type. In Annoy in April. 1894, thousand or more troops turned out to receive a fifty carried firearms. The others were glorious with banners. spears and sim liar medieval implements of carnage
 At Shameen, Canton, in June, 1884, some 400 soldiers were detailed to the foreign settlement and its neighbor- hood Those who were equipped with firearms bore guns which \were in vogue in 1S60-1s70 Similar accounts could be given of every port on the coast, excepting, it may be, the well- drilled cohorts of Ii Hung Chang, the premier. These will compare on equal terms with the best army divisions of Europe.
 With this body of 10000, reinforced by about 30.000 of second class, China will do her fighting. Her men are brave, patient, and long-suffering.