It is certainly marvelous that with the information so readily obtainable as to the Boxer movement, its aims and intentions, and after having it forced almost upon them, as the British, American and French ministers certainly have had by their missionaries and others, the diplomatic corps should have blindly allowed themselves to be penned up in Peking with only a handful of guards, to endure treatment as disgraceful as it has been unpleasant. True, M. Pichon urged his colleagues early to send for legation guards, and wanted them in larger numbers, but even he, after constant assurances from Bishop Faner (who was perfectly informed as to the gravity of the movement and the Imperial sanction), declined to act independently and allowed the situation to proceed to the utmost extremity before he believed the priest true and the tsung-li-yamen false. A very blue lot they have been during the siege. Although better fed than the unfortunates—the results of their credulity—compelled to suffer with them, they have not been pleasant company, and have been allowed to flock together as birds of a feather, and discuss at length the utter neglect of their home governments in not speedily rescuing them. The rest of us poor mortals have long since come to the conclusion that our governments have found out their true value, and have decided they are not worth a rescue. The Belgian minister having arrived only a few weeks before the siege began, is not to blame for the position, and he wonders as much as the ordinary mortal how his colleagues could have allowed it to come to pass. Is it possible that England and America, if they had been informed of the true state of affairs by their representatives, would not have requested their ministers to notify all the foreign women and children to leave the country? When a foreign war is inevitable, even in a civilized country, it is a necessity for non-combatants to leave. In a barbarous country it means murder, often with torture, to remain; yet our missionaries in Paotingfu and places inland were not warned that their district troubles were not local, but general, and that they should hasten to the coast, to be nearer protection. Some of the wiser English people among us assert that “so far from being blamed by their government for the siege, and loss of life accompanying it, their minister will be praised for bringing us safely through it, and receive a higher decoration if not a baronetcy; just as he was rewarded before for failing to keep his government informed of the Russians being the real owners of the Fu Haw railroad, receiving at that time some alphabetical additions to his signature.” John Brown is much improved by being called Sir John Brown, P. I. G.—which may mean “perfectly independent gentleman.” Posterity, however, will read of this siege with amazement, and wonder how so many blind and deaf men came to be appointed to the same post at one time. Truly a remarkable coincidence. CHAPTER VII