THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1894—95. 594 took full advantageofit. Theold swords drank blood freely. But the regular soldiers also did their full share. Discipline for the time had disappeared, and some of the Japanese officers wereshot by their own men while vainly trying to check their excesses.

to Japan. Her peoplehaveonl lately adopted the methods ofcivilised warfare. The scenes at Port Arthur were a strangereversion to the old state of things, a temporary outburst of the old blood fury that had marked the deeds of the Japanese swordsmen on the battlefields of the feudal wars. The Japanese are anxious to be recognised as the equalsof the civilised Powers, and are keenly sensitive to European and Americanpublic opinion. To set down frankly and truly the story of such atrocities as the slaughter that followedthe sinking of the Kowshing and the massacre of Port Arthur, and to give to such deeds their due measure of condemnation, is to do something to ensure that they will not be repeatedinother campaigns in the Far East, in which many Englishmen and Americans look forward to seeing Japan the trusted ally of civilised Powers.

Before ending with this miserable business, let me note from Mr. Villiers's narrative two episodes,onebringing out the naturalkindliness of the Japanese soldier in his normal state, the other showing what he became under the influence of the temporary blood fury. After tellinghow on the secondday he had succeeded in saving thelives of an old shopkeeper andhis family,he says: "On the afternoon of the next dayIreturned to the street. The scene had changed. All the shops were openand billetedwith troops. AsI passed the store at which this incident had takenplace on the previous day,Ifound the old Chinaman still alive and waiting on the men.

When he caught sight of me hisgratitude knew no bounds. He knelt and grovelled an-J clutched mylegs tillIwas compelled to shake the old fellow into a standing posture. As I was doing this a soldier stepped from the shop munching a ball of hot rice. On seeing the Chinaman he broke his ration in two, and thrust the other half into the old man's fist. Here was a touch of real good nature worthyof record! A few minutes afterwards Iwould be in another street, where a soldier would be carving at a dead body to see if the Celestial possessed a heart or not. At half-past eight on the morning of the third day Creelman (the New Y~ork World correspondent), who had just turned the corner of the house in which he lived, came back and asked me to follow him.

On a sand heap not a hundred yards from our door was a poor little baby about two months old. She had just fallen from the arms of her father, who, in trying to escape from the ruthless soldiery, had been wounded in his flight. A few yards off was his body, with a bayonet wound in his neck. His warm blood was still smoking in thefrosty air. The band of soldier fiends had passed on, and were busy shooting old men who were kneeling withtheir hands behind their backs in front of the Japanese rifles. Several had already bittenthe dust. So the bloody drama went on for three wholedays after the occupation ot PortArthur, till about thirty-six Chinamen were the only Celestials remaining in the city. These were used in burying their dead comrades and as Resumed on the morning of November 22nd, thePort Arthur massacre went on for two days more. Not only werethe Chinese murderedin the streets, but shops and houses were broken into, and the wretched people were shot as they cowered in their hiding-places, or dragged out to be cut to pieces in the open. Women, children, and feeble grey-bearded men were mercilessly slaughtered. Even animals were hacked and shot, and the bodies of the dead beheaded or ripped open as they lay in the streets. "Not only the soldiers," writes Mr. Villiers,"but the armedcoolies took a share in the bloody work. These gentlemenwere all of the famous Samuri sect, and practically the Bashi-bazouks of the army. The order of the Mikado that the Samuri, or two-handed swordsmen, were not to serve in the army,for fear of excesses, had been evaded by these gentlemen enlisting as coolies. With everybaggagetrain one met Samuridressed in the humble garb of the coolie, but with their long katana slung across their shoulders,carefully swathed in rags to protect thelacquer scabbard, and to keep tlae precious blade free from dust and rust, pretending to assist their lower-grade brethren in pushing a cart along. If these gentlemencould not for the moment whet their well-tempered steel in the blood of a Chinaman, they would try their ancient blades on the pigs or dogs of the country. It was a piteous sight in passing through the Manchu villages to see a number of badly wounded pigs, some with their heads nearly severed, but still with sufficient life within them to drag themselves along." These barbarians got their chance at Port Arthur,and