Show THE SIEGE OF PEKING An old means of torture the description descrip-tion of which has come down from the ancient cruel days was to place a victim vic-tim in a room and surround him with all necesslllcs and some comforts and Jhmi tr rinio DIP wnrlrl mit TTf > vas n I given the benefit of the daylight and at first was made to think he was to live out his life in that solitude But soon he noticed that the room seemed smaller than when he first entered then he became convinced that it was growing smaller and smaller and finally by making marks on the floor and reckoning the time from them ho I could estimate how many more dawns and evenings were to come and go before be-fore h6 was to be crushed by those Inexorable crv I exorable walls I seems to us that those people who were shut up In the legations in Peking must have experienced I experi-enced the same sensations as they saw I that wall of Chinese murderers closing in closer and closer day by day closing In with as little pity as had the walls that closed In upon the prisoner What a strain must have been theirs what despair must have been theirs at times how the real nature of each ono of those people must have been brought out There were men and women and little children What must have been the anguish of the women over their children what must have been the agony of the men who while keeping up a brave front felt that all were doomed and that all at last must fall before those fiends lencs Some no doubt prayed doubtless In their frenzy many grew profane in their desperation while the guards simply fought on and on and were ready when relief came to say as did that marine IIclcr to Gen Chaffcc Come in we need you in our business I seems to us that about the only Joy those men could have felt was when after each attack they counted the number of Chinese I that they had been able to kill We can understand that they felt a grim I pleasure In lhat and In low voices said to each other Lord but when wo go will we not take 0 host of ghosts of pigtails along llh us Surely none of them will ever again be quite what they were before Human Hu-man nerves and human nature can bear only about so much and when a tree has been whipped and stripped of Its branches by a hurricane It may live on but can never again be quite the same tree We hope it will be a warning to the nations to never again send their agents into semibarbarous countries beyond their protection A spot on the coast and under the guns of battleships should be selected on Chinese soil and made a residence for foreign Ministers |