These radical changes are of very recent introduction. They are results of the developments of the past few years. But when we see the ball of progress rolling so swiftly and gathering new material so rapidly, we may well conjecture that before many years the China of the past will be buried under its mass and modern China, like modern Japan, take rank among the most progressive nations of the world. * * * * * Transcribers Notes: 1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. 2. "Tenno" on pg's 5, 8 and 10 in original text appears with an macron (straight line) over the "o". 3. An oe ligatgure appears in the original text in the words "manoeuvres" (pg. 196) and "phoenix" (pg. 273). Spelling: 4 corrections made based on (multiple) correct spellings elsewhere in text. pg. 12 "Takenouchi" to "Takenouchi" (2) (statesman named Takenouchi) pg. 148 "Yang-tsze Kiang" to "Yang-tse-Kiang" (3) (river Yang-tse-Kiang,) pg. 280 "sufered" to "suffered" (now Chungwan suffered) pg. 337 "flagship" to "flag-ship" (4) (the Japanese flag-ship,) End of Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15), by Charles Morris