Have you ever noticed how soon a Chinese can spoil or totally destroy things in general? Whether it be the mechanic in the factory, the cook in the kitchen, the boy about the house, the gardener, the boatman, the tinker, tailor, or sailor, it is undeniable that the Chinese is a pastmaster in the art of spoiling and damaging and putting things destructively to their wrong uses. One sees it, not in one district and among one class of the Chinese; it is universal in the country and the people. To go through China one is struck more than anything else by the manner in which everything is brought to a general condition of decay and uselessness. And so in war the Chinese have been showing us how destructive is their nature, how vile they are in pillaging and looting and destroying. For miles around the city of Hankow long stretches of burned and pillaged districts stand as painfullest evidences of the ravages of this horrible civil war. These northern victors could not have behaved worse had they specifically endeavoured, and this is much to say. All the cruelties, all the infamy in its several forms, all the wanton destruction, the stealing, the ravishing of pure women, the killing of little children, the kidnapping of young girls, the gross oppression practised by them all will go down to history as the conduct unworthy of any civilised nation. I am aware that in writing this I may call down {142} considerable criticism, but I fail to see why such things should be kept back from public knowledge. China is making claims, as she long has been, that she is coming line to line with the civilisation of the West. She has claimed that she has got out of the rut of the past, and that now the world may confidently look for that which in history has made the nations of the world great--liberty, justice, and other so far unknown virtues in her present military campaign against those who truly, so far as we can tell, are urging for real reform.