Was It Treachery? The Historic Festival Night-Grim End of Festivities-War, the Hell-Born-The Skeleton at the Feast-News Flashed to the World.

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HE roar of the exploding shells that broke the stillness of the night in the harbor off Port Arthur on Monday, Feb. 8, 1904,

will go echoing down the annals of time as the first shots in a warfare likely to mark one of the great epochs in human history. Moving with the silence of grim specters across the lonely deep a flotilla of Japanese torpedo boats approached Russia's mighty Gibraltar of the East, crept in close to where the Czar's fleet lay in fancied security and scattered death and destruction over the peaceful surface of the calm bay.

The Mikado's bursting messengers of annihilation proved the tocsin that called Russia, the giant, sleeping bear, to arms too latelong too late to repair the damage done, the grim array of huge guns studding the hills and bristling from the casements of the fortified port roared forth defiance to the unbidden and unwelcome guest.

Speedily and with the ghastly silence of its approach the flotilla withdrew. In its wake confusion and chaos reigned. Great ships, built to withstand the shock and impact of battle, lay pierced and battered at their moorings. Decks and quarters were strewn with dead

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and dying. There was work for the repairer of battleship and fighting man. Aye, and for grave digger as well!

WAS IT TREACHERY?

War had begun! The first blow had fallen. It had descended unexpectedly at the dead of night with crushing force. The sword, half drawn, had been thrust home before the victim had seen it leave its scabbard.

Like the cry of a wounded animal, Russia rushed to arms. Treachery! Is there such a thing in war? Russia contends there is and that it was practiced in that moment when Port Arthur was awakened from its festivities to behold the pride of the navy shattered by an unexpected foe.

THE HISTORIC FESTIVAL NIGHT.

Port Arthur, like all other Russian centers, had dreamed of a war that was to come-perhaps. In anticipation of that possibility-or probability-its military and social leaders had taken advantage of the occasion for a last function before the dread actualities of battle might materialize. Bright lights flashed throughout the town. Carriages rattled over its thoroughfares. The dreamy strains of the waltz and the martial note of the patriotic anthem echoed through the streets. Beautiful women in the height of fashion and brave ment in the habiliments of social intercourse lent life to the gay scene. Wine and laughter, the unbounded hospitality of rich homes and the glitter, glamor and noisy joyousness of the circus tent were the order of the hour. Naught suggested the war cloud hovering overhead save the presence of silent sentinels at their posts and the shrill whistle. of the night wind cutting through the rigging of the fleet of warships lying at anchor in the harbor, each bristling with guns and freighted with agencies of destruction.

GRIM END OF FESTIVITIES.

It was II o'clock and the merriment was at its height. Then came the awful transition. Torpedoes that seemed to shake the very globe

burst forth in uproar and flame. The festive music and the soft murmur of happy voices died away in circus and ballroom and a momentary hush fell. The hideous crash of warfare, the cries of wounded and the groans of dying men smote the ear-a chorus of terror. As on the eve of Waterloo the booming of cannon blasted the dance, so now a sudden sweep of violence terminated the festivities. Men in evening dress rushed to the ramparts to work the guns upon whose efficacy depended the honor and stability of Russia. Richly gowned women whose gleaming white throats and soft arms glistened with jewels made their way unattended to hospitals, where errands of mercy called them and grewsome tasks awaited.

WAR, THE HELL-BORN.

War had broken its fetters and burst upon the land with hellish fury. War, concerning which one great writer has declared "A day of battle is a day of harvest for the devil;" than which Martin Luther said any plague was preferable! War, that Sherman called hell, and Shakspere the son of hell! Franklin said there was never a good war or a bad peace. The great Wellington contributed to this general depreciation of war the declaration that nothing save a battle lost was hardly so melancholy as a battle won. And now this vast game. of devilish ingenuity and hellish consequences was on in deadly earnest, born in the darkness of an Oriental night and destined to be maintained through many a day and night to come.

THE SKELETON AT THE FEAST.

Musket balls henceforth would claim their uncounted victims, the sword and bayonet their harvest of human suffering. Torpedo, shell and bomb cast off their restraining fetters to sing their harsh, discordant song of death. Potent engines of destruction, designed with all the cunning known to man would now have their frightful inning. Nature's resistless elements, blinding storms, frigid Arctic winds, trackless spreads of ice and snow would at once become man's ally and his foe in the struggle at hand. Far from the eyes of the interested

world, beyond the realm of romance, where throb of drum and wave of flag would awaken neither dream of “glory" or excitement, vast armies of men would do and die. Lonely stretches of glary ice and virgin snow would be crimsoned with their life's blood and the shifting snowdrift the resting place of their battle-scarred bodies.

It was indeed a harsh, cruel awakening that the Japanese torpedoes forced upon Port Arthur that night, transforming it from a center of social gaiety to the besieged hub of a great center experiencing all the horrors of relentless war in the dead of an Arctic winter.

NEWS FLASHED TO THE WORLD.

Information of what had taken place reached the world the following morning in an official report from Admiral Alexieff. Like the early reports that reached England from the theater of war in South Africa during the Transvaal campaign it was of the "I regret to state" order. Who can say with what emotion the Russian commander penned these lines to his imperial master, thousands of miles away and quite unconscious of the outbreak of hostilities:

"I most respectfully inform your majesty that at or about midnight of Feb. 8-9, Japanese torpedo boats made a sudden attack by means of mines upon the Russian squadron in the outer roads of the fortress of Port Arthur, in which the battleships Retvisan and Cesarevitch and the cruiser Pallada were damaged. An inspection is being made to ascertain the character of the damage. Details are following for your majesty."

The Russian commander's disastrous report was all too true. Not only had the Cesarevitch, pride of the Muscovite navy, and other powerful vessels been put out of commission, but before the message had left the viceroy's hands and before Port Arthur had recovered from the first shock and surprise, the Japanese fleet appeared in force and began a terrific onslaught upon the Russian seat of power in the far East. Twelve hours after the torpedo attack the Japanese fleets were sweeping the seas in pursuit of everything Russian, centering their attack upon Port Arthur. The battle that ensued was terrific.