19 NOVEMBER 1904, Page 17

T HE news from the front is still of an indecisive

character, but another element of romance has been added to the siege of Port Arthur by the successful flight from the land and water beleaguered city of a torpedo-boat bearing despatches for the Czar. In a storm of blinding snow the torpedo-boat managed to leave Port Arthur unobserved, to elude the vigi- lance of the Japanese blockading squadron, and to make her way at full speed to Chifu. On her arrival there the message she carried for the Czar was at once put on the wires, her crew and stores were landed, and at nightfall the boat was blown up to avoid her being either handed over to China, or else cut out by the Japanese destroyers that had followed her hot-foot to Chifu, and lay waiting outside the harbour. Though to blow up vessels in their port is hardly a proceeding of which the Chinese Government can approve, the act is not a breach of neutrality of which the Japanese can complain. What the message to the Czar contained is, of course, unknown, but there seems reason to believe that both besiegers and besieged are suffering severely from the terrible nature of the Manchurian winter climate. The same is true of the great armies that face each other on the Sha-ho. The frost seems to hold them spellbound, and both forces are reported to be more concerned at present in finding unfrozen water, in digging underground dwellings that are frost-proof, and in providing stoves for outposts, than in the "red business" of war.