his memory instead of a library or
a hospital or something like that. Well, there is one pailow or memorial
arch that is not of red lacquer but of white marble, erected not in
honor of a Chinese but in honor of a foreigner, the imposing von Kettler
Memorial which spans Ha-Ta-Men Street, far out. It is a Lest-We-Forget
memorial placed in honor of Baron von Kettler, the German minister who
was killed in the Boxer uprising. Chinese characters and German letters,
carved in marble, tell the tale of von Kettler's death to all who pass
beneath. Now to the ships. Three months ago when we went down to the
tropics, we happened to travel on French ships, two of them loaded to
the gunwales with troops for France, labor battalions. The passengers, I
may mention, came off rather badly, being squeezed into exceedingly
restricted quarters in order to make room for the troops. The first ship
we were on carried a thousand, the other one twelve hundred of these
little Annamites; the number varies according to the size of the vessel.
Really, you know, I don't think it's quite fair to either, to carry both
troops and passengers on the same ship. Well, at tiffin to-day we heard
what seemed like a most astounding proposal. Our host was explaining his
plan for dealing with the von Kettler Memorial. The _Athos_ was sunk
February 17, in the Mediterranean, together with five hundred Chinese
soldiers. And here were we listening to a suggestion to erase the
inscription on the von Kettler arch, and substitute a new one dedicating
the pailow to the five hundred "Chinese" troops torpedoed by the
Germans. It seems to me rather late in the day to begin inscribing
pailows to Chinese killed by the conquering foreigner. To create the war
spirit it may be necessary to dedicate the von Kettler pailow to this
purpose, but as a precedent it seems rather unwise,--leads one into
sweeping vistas of all the pailows of China, all the thousands
innumerable of red lacquered pailows, all insufficient in their
thousands to contain the names of the still greater thousands of Chinese
slain by their European conquerors.

XI

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BROKEN

It's done at last. China has at last broken diplomatic relations with
Germany this fourteenth day of March, 1917. The foreign press is
triumphant, while the Chinese press is much less enthusiastic, its
rejoicings far less obvious. Here's a bit of gossip for you, blown along
with the dust of Peking. (By this tim