Bisbee daily review., 1904-12-25

Ing N-lldB9 dnC SietptLS al oo utsIttS 47 minutes and 5O seconds north lati- tude and 121 degrees 15 minutes and 21 seconds east latitude. The harbor was small, running from east 10 wesc 1t measured the distance of about two niles. and not quite one mile wide. 1t was situated at the end of Lao- tung peninsula. In those days, few even the statesmen of Nippon, saw in that toe of the Liaotung peninsula a danger point aimed at the very heart of our country. As if the harboT is not small enough as it is, nature has civided it into two sections, the east and west harbors. As if these were not trials enough, the water of the harbor was found to be very shallow. h the east harbor there is a small space in which a large vessel could finc itself comfortable According to the examination of a foreign adviser to China, the bottom of the harbor is covered with clayey mud. breaking here and there into sandy bottoms containing a large quantity of shells. The entrance to this harbor was scarcely 300 yards vice. As you en- ter it, Golden Hill looks down upon you from the right and to the left is the Tigers Tail
 Even in those days. however. it was rot difficult to see how much Heaven had done for the modest harbOr. The screen of hill ranges enveloped it com pletely from the winCs of the Pechili, and from human foes from every where. Even to the casual eye it was evident that this little harbor was a nature-built naval vase China for tified it with German guns and Ger man skill. Even in the days of the Ch,no-Nippon war. German engineers were saying that it was inpregnable. Certainly it commanded the entrance ts the Gulf of Pechili. Ii you wished to drive a fang into the throat of Pc kin. you had only to occupy this base with a comparatively small fleet. and the statesmen of Nippon were not slow in seeing that the master Of Port Arthur is the master of the Yellow sea. In the hands of a hostile and compe- tent power. it is a Veritable danger threatening the very vitals of our land, which is within jhirty-odd hours of a hostile fleet in its harbor.
 At the close of the Chino-NipDon war al Shimonoseki. in front of Mar quis Ito. representing his majesty the emperor of Nippon. Li Hung Chang, representing his country. placed his sea to a document which ceded to Us Port Arthur and the southern end of the Llaotung peninsula. You know as well as I do that even while the ink was hardly dry upon the famous Shin- onoseki treaty. the triple combination of powe-s-Of Russia Germany ard France-advised US through a polite joint note and extensive naval demon i strations of the cont bined fleet of the three powers in the Cuff Of Pechili, to reconsider a portion of the Shimcn. oeski treaty and retrocede 10 China the Liaotung peninsula. with Port Arthur
 at the end Of 1t. You know as well as
 do that when Marquis Ito and his
 wr:e friencs saw the wisdom Of hark ening unto the mailed advice of the
 three Christian nations. and when he gagged the press and returned tc China the L.aotuug peninsula and Port Arthur. more than 100 soldiers
 who had fought in 5Ianchuria in the Chino-NippCn war. took it as an uC
 paralleled humiliation Of a nation which ha9 never beto:e been humiliat ed by a foreign power They wishe to puy this on record. and so they
 wrote their protest with their own ! blood by committing the hari-kiri. by frhr Of .. which says to the world that they would rather Cie than see dishonOr In their dreams. in t'= eyes CT their imagination. the fight ~en of Nip pon today see the ghosts of these men wandering over Port Arthur in company with those of many hundreds of ether men who have fallen before Port Arthur in storming it and talk ing it from the Chinese. These spi-I, g Of the dead, in the existence of which We of the far east believe quite az much as the Christians of the West believe in the immortality of the soul cannot find rest and peace as long as that stronghold is in possession of a power which humiliated us some ten i years ago. in the days of national ex- | haustiOn, at the end of the Chino-Nip- pon war. In the eyes of the Nippon soldier in font of Port Arthur today the occupation of the stronghold is more than a tactiful victory. He
 looks upon it as a sacred feast to be placed upon the altar of the heroic Cead of his comrades of ten years ago To him. the occupation of Port Ar
 'hu- is important from the military sense. Perhaps mere important. how ever than the strictly military phase of it, the occupation of Port Arthur is
 tO him sentimental, almost religious. To occupy Port Arthur again seems to
 him like washing the darkest stain
 from his surround flag once for all
 as he looks al it. it is to offer unt1
 the wandering and restless spirits of 1 these heroic dead a flower the frag-
 rance of which no earthly incense can equal.
 Today. around Port Arthur. men
 from England, from the United States from France ana Germany. war cores pcndents ard military attaches. are saying with one accord. There is no l q