hoofs neared; already he could almost feel the breath of the infuriate pursuer. He yelled.

"'E's on yer!" roared the Novice. "Take to the water! it's yer only chance! Go right in!"

Hookby did. The pent, breathless excitement of the onlookers-the awe of possible tragedy imminent-broke and went in a great roar of mirth as Hookby was seen to turn short and rush into the pond as men thirsting from the desert are said to invade water before tasting it. When he was half hidden he stopped suddenly, clutching his breast with his hands.

"It's ketched 'im in the wind," explained the Novice. "'E'll be better; 'e won't faint. Duck yer 'ead!" he shouted. "Dash some water on yer face then! 'Stonishin' 'ow 'elpless these 'fficials are," he remarked confidentially.

The bull stopped, pawed at the bank, and then went in toward Hookby up to its knees.

"Splash about!" yelled the Novice. "Splash 'im if 'e comes a-nigh yer; an' souse 'im. You're 'is master there!

I feel like a boss at a circus," he observed, charging his pipe.

The

The immersed Hook by set up a most desperate splashing accordingly. bull snorted and retreated to the bank, where he remained pawing and pacing up and down between the pond and the fence.

"Well, you are there now," remarked Peel, who stood raised upon something on the safe side of the fence, and lolled over with arms folded easily. Now you see where evil courses lead to, as the Bench 'ave sometimes observed in my 'earin'."

"Some of you drive 'im off!" called Hookby, recovering breath. "Get something and drive 'im off; don't stand there!"

"You ought to be thankin' me for all I've done for yer," said the Novice

a nice pleasant evenin' bath." "Are you goin' to stir yourselves?" roared Hookby.

"'Ow's the bottom?" asked the Novice. "Is there much mud? I've often looked at that pond, an' wondered what color it would dye a white man. Your clothes 'll be scented like a gal on a Sunday when you come out."

"Get somebody to shoot 'im!" screamed Hookby. "I'm goin' ice all through. You'll all be 'ad up for manslaughter!"

"I'm a-persuadin' of 'em, Mr. 'Ookby," answered the Novice. "You'll see me leadin' of 'em with spades an' pitchforks directly, an' givin' the word o' command. You keep a-lookin' out; but if I should see you goin' sleepy I'll throw a stone at yer."

Hook by blazed out in a fury of bad language and Peel got down as if to leave, saying that was no place for him. Then Enoch Tabb from the gate reminded Hookby there were respectable women and innocent children listening, and one of the matrons told Hook by that if he was drowned it would be a fitting judgment on him. But Peter Sall advised Hookby to take off his coat and throw it to the bull to play with on the far shore, and then make for the fence; and the next minute Hookby was in his shirt-sleeves while the bull galloped round after the discarded garment. He trampled it, he tore it, he tossed it; and as he shook it a pair of handcuffs dropped back from the pocket. The animal pounded them into the turf amid yells of delight. "As if it was a Christian!" said one of the women admiringly.

"Now what'll you give me to get you out, Mr. 'Ook by?" asked the Novice when order was restored. "I shou'n't sleep if I left yer there. But you've

the coins and pocketed them, and regained the fence. Hookby positively howled.

"Back in two minutes," shouted the Novice. "Honor bright, Mr. 'Ookby. You'll just 'ave time to get to the station."

The company raised a chorus of assurance. Peel returned with a brownand-white mongrel at his heels. At a wave of his hand the dog was over the fence.

"Go for 'im!" shouted Peel. for 'im! Cha-ase 'im!"

"Go

The dog scampered to the bull, barking loudly. The bull gave chase as

"Say, is it a go?"

"One," said Hookby.

"Two, Mr. 'Ookby. Chuck 'em out in a paper; in that paper you've got wi' my name on it. Then you can say you lost it. Throw 'ard."

Hookby was muddied, soddened to the marrow, hungry, broken. He took out the money, wrapped it tightly, and threw it towards the fence. Peel laughed, jumped down lightly, unrolled and tore the paper to tatters, spat on Longman's Magazine.

"I shall go over an' see old Flindon to-morrow," said the Novice later, referring to his creditor. "'E'd got the gout, or else 'e'd never 'ave done this; 'e ain't a bad sort at bottom. An' when 'e 'ears me tell the 'istory o' this day if 'e don't stand the hull damage 'imself you may call me a 'Ookby!" W. H. Rainsford.

Temple Bar.

When the German Emperor in the summer of 1900 descanted on the Yellow Peril, and posed for half an hour as the European Michael, he set an example which has proved infectious among observers of the situation in the Far East whose imagination is more easily excited by the spectres of their own creation than controlled by the sound knowledge and calm judgment that alone make any opinion of value. The Yellow Peril is again being raised by Russian, French, and even German writers and politicians, whose names are well known, in order to excite Continental opinion, first against Japan, and secondly, and perhaps more definitely, against England, the ally of that Great Power of the Orient. There is no more popular theme in the Continental press and periodicals to-day than the alleged aproaching combination of the yellow races, welded and led on by Japan, the magician of the Far East, for the purpose of defying, humiliating, and in the end menacing Europe.

The prospect placed before the unin

1 A typical instance of these opinions may be found in the description of England given by a Belgian Senator, M. Picard:-"Ce peuple

structed reading public is a revival of the Hun and Mongol terrors, and the names of Attila and Genghis are set out in the largest type to create a feeling of apprehension. The reader is assured in the most positive manner that it is the doing of that enterprising nation of Japan. Nay, there is a still greater culprit, it is England, who stands behind her, and unfortunately a very large number of foreigners believe it, and add this one to the long list they have compiled of our enormities as a nation.1

Before examining the Yellow Peril in a matter-of-fact manner it will be as well to give one or two specimens of what is being written about it on the Continent. M. de Lanessan, an exFrench Colonial Minister who has studied colonial questions with some assiduity, has published a long article aiming at showing what China may become under Japanese teaching and leading. He is aware that some of the Chinese authorities have made use of Japanese instructors, not merely for military but also for pacific pursuits,

est aussi enthousiaste et brigand comme nation, qu'il est honnete et loyal comme individu."

and he assumes that results have been attained many years before they are possible. For instance, he asserts that "the Viceroy of Yunnan has now under his orders an army of 50,000 men well trained by Japanese officers, and provided with modern weapons." This statement is not based upon fact, and is a typical exaggeration among the collection of details put forward to make out a plausible-looking case. Yunnan is one of the poorest provinces of China. If the ten Japanese officers who went there in 1902 have succeeded in drilling a thousand men, they are as many as the Viceroy would care to pay for. In order to create a sense of peril, it is necessary to exaggerate, and M. de Lanessan gravely assures his readers that the education which the Chinese are receiving at the hands of the Japanese "contains nothing favorable to the Western nations."

In another part of his paper he extols the "military qualities" of the Chinese, whose sole defect from this point of view is that they have "no taste for the soldier's profession" and "no sense of military honor." But these defects are removable, and wherever they are given a chance Japanese instructors are already removing them. General Frey, a French officer who served in China, has just published a book on "The Chinese Army, as it was, as it is, and as it will be," in which he supports M. de Lanessan's conclusions, and enlarges upon the formidable proportions that the future Chinese army -the force of a nation of 500 millions -will attain. It is possible to agree on this point to a great extent with the author, and to hold the highest opinion of the military qualities of the Chinese race without foreseeing or apprehending the disturbance of the present political system or the danger to Europe that has been conjured up as the inevitable consequences of the re

vival and progress of the Far Eastern States in a fit of nightmare.

But if French writers are somewhat alarmist, it is in Russia that the general imagination is running riot on the subject of the Yellow Peril, arising from the anticipated and dreaded accaparement of China by Japan. The Russian papers are full of the subject, and as they only deal thus persistently at any rate with matters approved of by the official authorities, it may be concluded that design and calculation are at the root of the demonstration rather than mere imagination. The expression of these opinions is not confined to the journalists of St. Petersburg and Moscow. A Russian officer, Commandant Eletz, who served in China, has lately been lecturing on the subject in Brussels and elsewhere. Some of the gallant officer's remarks were a little surprising-as, for instance, his assertion that "the arrogant and dictatorial attitude of some ambassadors, especially the English," was responsible for the present situation, which he described as "worse than before the Boxers." He evidently forgot the presence in Pekin of M. Lessar, who outdistances all competitors in arrogance and imperiousness, and indeed admits of no rivalry in those respects. Commandant Eletz does not confine himself to one extraordinary statement. We, who think that English action in the Far East for the last ten years has been extremely supine, are assured that the attitude of the English ambassador is especially arrogant, but in the next passage a still more serious charge is laid to our account. Our "territorial acquisitions by force" (brutales) have been, it appears, the real incentive to the Chinese and Japanese to combine and create a formidable Yellow confederacy. Yet it is Russia, and not England, who has absorbed Mongolia and Manchuria, and come down to the Yellow Sea. A little

inaccuracy of this sort is not surprising on the part of persons who see in the employment of Chinese laborers in South African gold mines a contributory to the Yellow Peril.

An officer of the Russian Imperial Guard entrusted with a semi-official mission as a propagandist does not allow himself to talk nonsense such as this without a strong motive. What is it? Russia is brought face to face with Japan. She tried a game of bluff and browbeating, and Japan did not flinch.

Russia recognizes the serious

ness of the position, and is alive to its hidden dangers. But against a small Power such as Japan is still considered to be, against an Asiatic Power which she always must be-and Asiatic on the Continent means inferior-she cannot call out to her too faithful ally, France, for aid. No matter what the reverses of war, neither pride, nor selfinterest will allow of such an appealpride, because Russia is, after all, a great empire on the map; self-interest because, if Russia cannot vanquish Japan, the question must be asked in Paris what possible use can Russia be against Germany? All these contingencies have been passed in review at St. Petersburg, and the necessity has been realized of creating the impression of a common danger. Hence the Yellow Peril has been evoked. Russia does not want aid against Japan, but against "a peril which is common to all Europeans and their immense interests in China." The situation is painted as worse than it was before the Boxer rising, and the prediction is made as a crushingly conclusive argument that "Chinese soldiers will become first-class, and that Japan will make out of them the most formidable army in the world."

The object of these statements is clear. It is to rally France and Germany to the side of Russia, to revive in 1904 the triple alliance of 1895

which humiliated Japan in the hour of victory, and to avert, for the benefit of Russia, the unpleasant admission that she has gone too far and must draw back under the pressure of diplomacy or by the force of arms. These are the definite aims and objects which have made Russians set their wits together to conjure up the Yellow Peril, and some of their sympathetic friends in Paris are backing them up. In Berlin, too, the idea has been well received. If there is hesitation there, it arises from the doubt as to what the three allies of 1895 could accomplish against the other three allies of 1904, for every one ought to know that, though there may at this moment be no written bond, the co-operation of the United States with England and Japan in face of such a menace would not be delayed one hour after the other side had revealed their intentions.

As our Continental friends are for their own reasons devoting so much attention to the so-called Yellow Peril, it is not wholly waste of time to give it careful consideration from our point of view, and to reduce the problem to its correct proportions. Assuredly if there were a real Yellow Peril, we could not escape feeling its consequences just as much as any of the others. It would mean the disappearance of our trade throughout the greater part of Asia, the probable loss of Burma, a constant menace to India, and the closing of Central Asia more effectually than is done by the Russian tariff. The magnitude and tempting character of the prize that our possessions in Southern Asia would offer might even prove the safeguard of Europe, by diverting the overflow of those millions of armed warriors before it reached the Volga. It is with no intention of diminishing the possible consequences of the peril, whenever it may have attained cor