ot be taken, except
upon the more doubtful cases. Four, about whose guilt no doubts
existed, were immediately beheaded; and the others, after communicating
with Peking, were punished in varying degrees--one or two capitally.

[4] '_By the gallows:_'--Or much rather by decapitation. Accordingly, we
read of a Ming (_i. e._, native Chinese) emperor, who (upon finding
himself in a dreadfully small minority) retired into his garden with his
daughter, and there hanged both himself and the lady. On no account
would he have decapitated either; since in that case the corpses, being
headless, would in Chinese estimation have been imperfect.

[5] '_Colonel Chesney:_'--The same, I believe, whose name was at one
time so honourably known in connection with the Euphrates and its steam
navigation.

CONDUCT OF THE WAR.

Such is the condition of that guilty town, nearest of all Chinese towns
to Hong-Kong, and indissolubly connected with ourselves. From this town
it is that the insults to our flag, and the attempts at poisoning,
wholesale and retail, have collectively emanated; and all under the
original impulse of Yeh. Surely, in speculating on the conduct of the
war, either as probable or as reasonable, the old oracular sentence of
Cato the Elder and of the Roman senate (_Delenda est Carthago_) begins
to murmur in our ears--not in this stern form, but in some modification,
better suited to a merciful religion and to our western civilization. It
is a great neglect on the part of somebody, that we have no account of
the baker's trial at Hong-Kong. He was acquitted, it seems; but upon
what ground? Some journals told us that he represented Yeh as coercing
him into this vile attempt, through his natural affection for his
family, alleged to be in Yeh's power at Canton. Such a fact, if true,
would furnish some doubtful palliation of the baker's crime, and might
have weight allowed in the sentence; but surely it would place a most
dangerous power in the hands of Chinese grandees, if, through the
leverage of families within their grasp, and by official connivance on
our part, they could reach and govern a set of agents in Hong-Kong. No
sympathy with our horror of secret murders by poison, under the shelter
of household opportunities, must be counted on from the emperor, for he
has himself largely encouraged, rewarded, and decorated these claims on
his public bounty. The more necessary that such nests of crime as
Canton, and such suggestors