t had lately
done, and practically demanding that the Government take some steps to
prevent the attempted raising of anti-foreign feeling."

Isn't it lucky we are here at this moment! Could you believe it! Now you
know how "indemnities" are raised, and how "anti-foreign feeling" is
aroused. A day or two afterward, a further pronouncement was made:

Comments in the Chinese press have been rather rude and
sharp, so that the Ministry [Chinese] has been requested
by the British, Russian, French and Japanese and other
foreign governments to caution the editors and proprietors
of Chinese papers to exercise more care and discretion in
their recording of foreign intercourse affairs, and that
sufficient politeness should be showed to foreign
ministers and consuls as a sign of courtesy toward the
representatives of Treaty Powers in this country.

There you have it--the Chinese press muzzled at the instigation of
foreign powers! Since that happened a few days ago, I haven't got nearly
as much fun out of my "Gazette" in the morning when I have had my
"pollidge." But, thank Heaven, the English newspapers, representing the
interests of the foreign powers, are able to spout freely. And these
papers have been having a wonderful time describing the happenings in
Tientsin, where the threatened boycott has gone into effect. For the
Chinese, baffled in their attempt to regain their captured territory,
have instituted what they call that "revenge which must take the form of
civilized retaliation, namely, refusal to buy or sell French goods." On
an appointed day there was a general walk-out in the French concession
in Tientsin. All the Chinese in French employ--house servants, waiters,
electricians in the power-houses, stall-holders in the markets,
policemen, every one in any way connected with or in French
service--took themselves off. Moving-picture shows are in darkness;
interpreters and clerks in banks and commercial houses have disappeared;
cooks, coolies and coachmen have departed; and life in the whole French
concession is entirely disorganized! The French consul-general sent a
letter of protest to the Chinese Commissioner of Foreign Affairs,
calling for "strict preventive measures on the part of the Chinese
authorities," and the answer of the Commissioner, the prompt and polite
reply, was to the effect that the only preventive measure for these
disturbances would be to hand Lao Hsi Kai back to t