Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-11-05

eode without parallel IN the his'ois
the world. The conquest or one count
by another is not new. ana even the CON
ouest Of large kingdom by small one
has precedents; but nothing ike the
Manchu conquest of China ever took
nIac. e'sewhere in the memory of man,
and no such domination as that OF the
Manchus over the people of the empire
they ruled has ever happened anywhere
else.
To imagine the nearest thing to par
allel-for no complete parallel is possible
let us suppose that somewhere in Brit
ish Columbia there was a family or saw
ages numbering perhaps sixty families
and not in any way notable above othe'
tribesmen. Suppose that. slightly aug
mented in numbers by the passage Oh
two or three generations. this family
should invade the United States.
OF course the invasion would be laugh
able: and just the great empire OF
China laughed at the Manchu invasion.
In fact this was the real cause of it's
downfall; for not until Manchu con-
queror entered Picking did the Chinese
cease to regard the thing as joke. Up
TO the very time of their ruin the whole
affair seemed incred BILE. and the Chinese
were busy settling their internal prob
lens by means of riots and civil wars.
Il
But now suppose that only twenty-six
years after the first invasion by this in
significant tribe it overthrow the American
government while we We're busy putting
down labor war and paying atten-
ton to it. Suppose it had entered WASH
ington and installed a barbarian emperor
before our newspapers had ceased to re-
port the labor war as the main matter of
interest and had begun to pay the slight
est attent on to the savage incursfon.
And then suppose that We revolted, and
revolted in vain: and that go years
elapsed before we were able to shake of
the foreign yoke.
This parallel Is not in all respects per-
feet. but 1t is close enough to give an
idea of what an unprecedented event in
the history of the world the Manchu
conquest of China was. In some respects
the parallel falls short. for the United
States is not by any means acknowledged
as the leader of the world of today. while
China In 1914 was unquestionably the
greatest and richest empire of its time.
The Manchus were not a nation; Manchu
was hardly more than the name of q
family. living In valley in a region too
little prosperous and too far out of the
way for the great empire to disturb or
to know much about its existence.
las soon. says the Rev. John Ross,
In his history of the Manchus, might
we expect the drops of water oozing from
q
bearing on it's bosom the peaceful fleets
of all nations, as the few ignorant de-
scendants of the Tartar Aisin Gioro to
become. by their despicable insignificant
resources, the legislators of fourth Of
mankind, and the rulers of the most
populous empire under the sun.
THE Manchus began their wars with
the Chinese ignorant Of letters, without
q written language, scarcely reclaimed
from the savage barbarism when they
ate raw flesh and dug pits for houses
against a people highly civilized. who for
every brave Manchu could bring 100
equally brave Chinese into the field.
''Noormachu. with 100 followers, dared
to shake his sword in the face Of the
powerful Ming dynasty when it claimed
by divine right to rule the whole EARTH
His grandson was seated at five years old
the officials of Kwangtung and the lit
crates of Yunnan. side by side with the
chiefs Of Mongolia. bowed before him to
the ground ere his short reign was COM
pleted."
And he denies that II was the superior
efficiency or bravery of the Manchu which
made the Chinaman undergo the to him
unspeakable degradation of shaving OF
his own hair: for man TO man the Chi
nese We're, to say the least. tie equals of
their foe. IL the polite wisdom of
the dwarf and the senseless stupidity of
the giant which brought the latter to
grief and the former TO greatness. The