NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE news of the week from China has been horrible. Reports from native sources received at Shanghai, and believed to be trustworthy, declare that all the Europeans in Pekin to the number of one thousand, including, unhappily, a large number of women and children, have been massacred. They held out till food and ammunition were exhausted, and then the British Legation, where they were besieged, was stormed and burned. It is also stated that the Emperor and the Dowager- Empress were forced to commit suicide by taking opium, but that in the case of the Empress the drug did not prove fatal: No doubt these reports are not officially confirmed, and it is therefore just conceivable that the Europeans may still be, alive, but for ourselves we have no hope. The most that we can say is that up till Friday the matter was not one of absolute certainty. It is, however, certain that the leader of the anti-foreign party, a member of the Imperial house known to Europeans as Prince Tuan, is master in Pekin, whether as father of the heir to the throne or as Dictator, and has by Imperial decree ordered all China- men to "stamp out" the foreigners. It is also certain that he is obeyed by the large armies of soldiers which have been secretly gathered together, partially trained by German and Japanese drillmasters, and armed with Mauser rifles, Maxims —of which forty were seized by Admiral Seymour in one arsenal—and Krupp guns. And, finally, it is certain that this Prince and these soldiers, by the last advices, were shelling and firing on the Legations, in which a few soldiers with little ammunition were desperately resisting. China has, in fact, given the rein to its barbaric instincts, has com- mitted an atrocity of the true Asiatic kind, and has passed on all Europe an insult almost without a parallel in history. Even the Turk in the height of his power only confined Ambassadors in the Seven Towers.
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