Mr. Melvin was much impressed by the bearing of the young stranger who had returned from Manchuria so recently, and invited him to the parsonage so that they might get better acquainted. During the course of the evening he asked his guest if he was fond of soldiering, and in reply was told that when he left Canada he was in love with the idea, and even after the awful experiences of Port Arthur, where he was often for hours together in a perfect hell of fire, he thought he would love a fair fight in the open, and accordingly broke for Mukden. He told the minister, however, that this great battle, including the retreat, was even worse than the siege, as in the former large bodies of them had frequently to face about and charge with the bayonet to press back the hordes of Japanese who were continually driving in upon them. Mr. Devoau said: "When you think of the fact that we could never meet our enemies when we were not outnumbered from two to three to every one of our own men, you will concede that we never had a fair chance, but put them man to man and they could never withstand the Russians in a bayonet charge. The disparity in numbers is very evident from the fact that the Russians had only 300,000 infantry and 26,700 cavalry at Mukden, while opposed to this was a force of 650,000 men, or, for all practical purposes, just double the number. We fought them for nineteen days along a front one hundred miles in length, and were only then defeated by an accident, bringing off 1,300 guns out of 1,360, and a larger quantity of baggage, marching into headquarters, as the corps of General Linevitch actually did, with banners flying and bands playing as if they were just fresh from the parade ground. Marshal Oyama may go down in history as a great strategist, but in my humble judgment General Kuropatkin is greater. The general knew full well that if he had one more army corps he could have cut in two the long drawn out flanking force of his antagonist, crumpled it up, and turned their victory into a disastrous and decisive defeat. As it was, at the close of the war General Linevitch confronted the enemy with 1,000,000 men in arms, and they, unwilling to try conclusions when there was man for man, made a peace favorable to Russia on the whole. As corroboration of this I give you the word of the foreign military attaches to the Russian army."