The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1894-12-22
COMPLETE COLLAPSE OF CHINA
sixty Millions Kun Before the Foreign
INVADER. =

sixty Millions Kun Before the Foreign
Invader. 4
London Spectator: Tho collapse OF
tho Chinese empire is not only the most
amazing incident of the present hall
century, bu. Il of the most eStraor.
binary incidents IN the entire history
of Asia. What has deprived TIM huge
and apparently solid body SO com.
pletely of virility? There are at least
Co. 0O. 900 of men in the Chinese empire
capable of bearing arms. all sturdy,
fellows, often OF unusual physical
strength. and all not only content with
their civilization, bus proud OF it to an
almost insane degree. They are all,
too, so strongly bound together, that
for {, 900 years they haze have accepted
one system of thought, have employed
one literary tongue. and have ooeyed
one central power with n rever-
ence which has been to them
almost n religion. Iheir govern
mont, ono of the most absolute
in the world, has at least ~endeavored
to make an army. has been in posses
sion OF adequate means, and counts JUS
soldiers by tens of thousands, and Its
militia by the million. The people, 50
far from being towards, are noted an
over eastern Asia as dangerous turbu-
lent subjects; while they possess in n
most unusual degree the faculty OF en-
tering into combinations which neither
the Dutch nor the British nor the man
darlns possess the faculty OF breaking
up. Wolves. or wild dogs, or bntfnlocs
on the prairie 10 not in timo of danger
stick closer to n another than the
members of a Chinese ''hoey.' Yet
these people, so numerous, SO homo-
geneous. aud so proud, have been
struck as Will. paralysis by the incur
Won Of some so, 900 Japanese, men OF
their blood, smaller than them
selves, and heretofore regarded by
them almost with contempt.
The Mexicans and Peruvian who fled
before n few Spaniards thought their
invaders gods. and whom adisa bused OF
the illusion, turned on them and died
IN great heaps, fighting q hopeless bat
tie. The Chinese do not fight at I'LL.
1t is not only that the masses do not
fight that tho soldiers run away, and
that the sailors after one pounding
match NJ long range sknlk in harbor;
but that the princes, ministers, gener,
Nls and cultivated gentry do not fight,
that no class is willing to face death,
that mo leader appears either from
among the princes or the mandarins or
the common folk, willing to make a
stand. A Hofer is as wanting ms
nn Archdulte Charles. Even FORTH
cations-splcndid fortitications like
those of Talienwan, armed with Krupp
batteries, which amaze ever the con-
querors. give the Chinese no heart to
%rcsist. no impulse to strike one brave
stroke for their own safety. They arc
the most enduring of mankind. they
rnre nothing about death. they fight
nmong themselves with savage deter
mination; but as against the foreign
invader they not only do nothing. but
they make no effort to do anything.
What has happened to them" What
makes the officers run first, and the SOL
diers throw away their protecting
rifles, and n man like Prince hung. old
in the tradition of nbsolutism, state OF
his own accord that without foreign in,
tervention China is ''lost?"