Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1900-07-26
All In The Dark.

making III ali Inc STUN eHaI - bClnS
penned on this side Of the P3Sfic BY
callow and inexperienced newspaper
writers, whose experience OF the
Flowery Land is limited to a visit to a
Chinese laundry, and to what they
read in the press dispatches from the
seat Of the trouble around Pekin. That
point is that nearly everything these
young people nave written bears about
the same relation to the truth that a
grammar grade graduating essay on
Columbus bears to the real character
of the man from Genoa.
Americans are all in the dark about
China; as much so as the European
powers that are hopelessly seekinga
solutio OF the diff ,ulty without cut
ting each others Threats in strug-
gle for precedence, or for share Of
the coveted spills. The very fact
that the com 5ined Christian pc vers
have called on heather Japan to aid
in resculng Christian missionaries not
only makes the foolish smile. but also
causes the thong htful t. grisvs.
a hundre years ago China, one Of
the oldest empires on earth, vas an
unknown country, and the few books
Of travel dealing with it were of a
character to excite pity among we'll
read IN IN today. A series Of events
has opened up certain trelty pprts to
commerce az inst the will Of tn, Chi
nese, and missions have b3el e3fab-
lished by evangelicl Il and ptJPistni-
ist agencies in various parts Of liua,
chiefly in the vicinity OF the great
rivers and the seaports, where all
could be furnished them in time Of
need. But all these treaty p,rts, an
all these missions stations, bear about
the same prop )rtion to til, Chinese
empire that the warts on the rhini of
ence and cubic contents.
For the first tim, the great lp)wers
of the world have learned that during
the past two years China has not only
been purchasing from England and
Germany arms OF precision by hun
dreds Of thousands, hut als) high pow
er field guns aud m)dern repeating
firearms, in such quantities as to sho V
clearly that the present outbreak WIS
in contemplation two years ago. And
yet nothing OF i. was known or sus-
pected. And nothing could be known
I because the Chinese are nothing if II
secretive. A highlander outbreak,
planned for weeks. always takes the
officers in Pacific coast cities by sur
prise.
And $ it is well for the rea lers OF
newspapers to waste very little tim 3
reading college essays and wildcat ell
1 -
poets. especially when these com
ments are founded on unreliable dis
patches. The stories telling OF inter-
necine feuds among the Chinese,
which may open up the way to Pekin
for The allied forces and protect the le-
cations in the meanwhile are alb ut As
trustworthy as the reports of the sui
eide of the Empress ,Dowlger. who
seems at last reports to be very
lively corpse, indeed. The whole
philosophy of Chinese nature, in Chi
ma, is opposed to the dissemination of
information about anything. A
Flenchman who had spent most OF his
life in the FIowery Land said in the
ePigrammatlc way of his people that
all that was necessary to get along in
China was to. observe four maxims:
"Avoid the poor man. Seek the rich
man. Believe nothing that you hear.
Trust no oner
This is charming idea of count
try in which missionaries have been
laboring for at least a century, but it
is probably pretty near the truth and
should give pause to the reader in be-
lieving reports which are rs often as
not originated for the purposes OF
military deception by the Chinese
themselves. The Chinese know how
to tell stories to the marines
In the last six months. hogs have
advanced s. head. Apply this to
$4,000, 900 hogs, and there is a profit