[Footnote *:  The only missionary killed in the last fifty years was stabbed while grappling with a burglar.]

“My acquaintance with Japan dates back forty-six years; and in the meantime I have had pleasant relations with most of the ministers she has sent to China.  One of her officials recently gave me a beautiful scarf-pin that speaks volumes for American influence, showing as it does the two flags in friendly union on one flagstaff.  I gave him in return the following lines: 

 “’To sun and stars divided sway! 
   Remote but kindred suns are they,
   In friendly concord here they twine
   To form a new celestial sign.

 “’Thou, Orient sun, still higher rise
   To fill with light the Eastern skies! 
   And you, ye stars and stripes, unfurled
   Shed glory on the Western world!

 “’Our starry flag first woke the dawn
   In the empire of the Rising Sun. 
   May no ill chance e’er break the tie,
   And so we shout our loud banzai!’

“I now turn to the less cheering theme of American influence in China.  It reminds me of the naturalist who took for the [Page 247] heading of a chapter ‘Snakes in Iceland,’ and whose entire chapter consisted of the words ‘There are no snakes in Iceland.’  Though formerly blazing like a constellation in the Milky Way, American influence has vanished so completely that you can hardly see it with a microscope.  What influence can we presume on when our commodities are shut out, not by legislative action but as a result of popular resentment?

THE BOYCOTT

“True, the latest advices are to the effect that the boycott has broken down.  I foresaw and foretold more than two months ago that it could not in the nature of the case be of long duration, that it was a mere ballon d’essai—­an encouraging proof that Orientals are learning to apply our methods.  But is there not a deplorable difference between the conditions under which it is used in the two countries?  In one the people all read, and the newspaper is in everybody’s hand.  The moment a strike or boycott is declared off all hands fall into their places and things go on as usual.  In the other the readers are less than one in twenty.  Newspapers, away from the open ports, are scarcely known, or if they exist they are subject to the tyranny of the mandarins or the terrorism of the mob.  Hence a war may be waged in one province and people in another may scarcely hear of it.  Chevaux-de-frise may bar out goods from one port, while they are more or less openly admitted in other ports.  Not only so, the hostile feeling engendered by such conflict of interest is not dissipated by sunshine, but rankles and spreads like an epidemic over vast regions unenlightened by newspapers or by contact with foreign commerce.