The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-07-28
ENGLISH ARE UNEASY.
Apparently Expecting Trouble From
Some Source.

New York. July 2S.-A dispatch to the
Tribune from London says:
The necessity for censorship of press
dispatches from Shanghai has been
proved by the untrustworthiness of all
accounts of the massacre alleged to
have occurred ON July 6. The foreign
Offices of Europe must now admit that
they have been themselves deceived by
sensational journalism, credulous as the
state department may have been in ac-
ceptlng Mr.. COnger'S message for a date
which Sheng chose to assign to 1t.
Sir Claude Macdonald, who was a SOL
oier before he was a diplomatist. ex-
vice have been unable to understand,
namely, his method of successful de-
fence for period of at least nineteen
days. From the opening of the siege the
embassy guards occupied and held a
portion OF the city wall and from this
bastion commanded the open spaces
around the British and Russian inclos-
ureS, and also prevented artillery and
rife fire from the high positions close
at hand. The Chinese had been using
3-inch gun but had not succeeded in
organizing an effective plan of attack
Veterans of the service who knew every
foot of space in the British enclosure
were amazed by the evidence that the
assault upon the three leading embas-
sizes had been feeble and were disposed
to believe that the danger might have
been exaggerated on July 6, just as 1t
had been on June "A, when Sir Robert
Hart sent his despairing appeal for
rescue.
The Japanese minister gave express
sion yesterday to apprehension that the
worst had happened in Pelxin, but he did
not refer to any special sources of in
formation in his possession. Dispatches
until a late hour threw little light upon
the situation.
The representatives of the foreign
office in parliament were silent, but
a. from he hnG Of in
formation that the feeling there was
one of hopelessness and bewilderment.
and that the massacre of the legations
was regarded as highly probable and
imprisonment of the remnant of the
foreign garrison as barely possible.
The sky is so heavily clouded with
the mystery of China, the interminable
guerilla warfare in South Africa and
the famine in India that it is hardly
necessary for Earl Eemyss to borrow
trouble over the chances of an invasion
of England next November and the in
Suficiency of the home defenseS. Lord
Salisbury has attempted to break the
force of these outcries of alarm by a
jest about danger from shooting stars
rebu--ed him for ill-timed optimism.
The curious debate in the house of
lords yesterday has reflected the omi-
nous talk which has been going on in
the city for several days about the
chances of sudden attack from
France, when the home defenses are
the weakest. Probably these alarms
merely indicate the excessive strain to
which Englishmen have been subjected
during the last ten months. Enor-
nous purchases of Welsh coal by the
Paris government and well authenti-
Gated reports that Dover and other
channel Qualifications have been secret
ly surveyed and charted by French
naval experts. and reports made upon
the defenses of Liverpool and other
ports, are facts upon which the alarm
lists lay stress, but the stock markets
are not influenced by these sinister
speculationS.