There can be no doubt that this will be so. For months past every civilian in the fortress has been compelled to take his turn in the trenches; every man able to bear arms has borne them, with the possible exception of the Red Cross surgeons. The Japanese were not nearly so communicative as the Russians, and could not be surprised into making admissions. I said to a Russian naval officer once: “Captain, why are you putting out mines on the high seas?” “We are not putting out mines on the high seas; we put them only twenty-five miles from the coast, except perhaps at Kerr Bay they extend farther. Who says we put them on the high seas?” But the Japanese will talk, if you will do something for them. There was one, a man of modern ideas, who did not see the usefulness, from the military point of view, of the soldier sacrificing his life rather than turning back, and even seeking death in battle as the greatest good. He wished me to write an article in a local paper, which he would have translated and quoted in all Japanese papers, showing that sometimes it was wiser to surrender, and thereby incommode the enemy, than to die. The article appeared; it had the usual references to Dai Nippon, and all about Yamato Domashi in its most idealistic and refined aspects. It satisfied him in every particular but one. I wrote that it might be wiser to surrender or flee than to die; that could not be so; it was so glorious to die for one’s country! The very man who appreciated the logic of the argument was unable to overcome the sentiment which animates the Japanese soldier. The Japanese informed me in August, after the battle of Tashichiao, that in no circumstances would they press on beyond Liaoyang this campaign unless the Russians fell back to Harbin--even then their forces were to remain south of Mukden until next spring, when the great campaign will begin--and finish.