NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE state of public information as to the war in the Far East is a little curious. The Japanese are inclined to shoot anybody who sends intelligence to Europe, and the Chinese are probably nearly as strict, though, by favour, we suppose, of Li Hung Chang, unpleasant facts do get here from Tientsin. A war correspondent with the Japanese army on the Yaloo is, it is true, allowed to telegraph to the Central News Association and the Times ; but his messages, we suspect, are pretty severely edited. The latest, dated October 10th, is not quite so favourable to the Japanese as it looks. Marshal Yamagata has taken Wi-ja on the Yaloo, and is marching, it is probable, on Moukden ; but the march is very slow, the roadless condition of the country delaying the artillery, and the difficulties of commissariat being great. This is important because time is of the last importance to Japan, and their General, if he is really threatening Monkden, has an army to over- throw which ought to contain some fighting men from Tartary. It is possible, however, that the advance on Moukden is a feint ; that the true objective is Pekin ; and that the thirty thousand Japanese afloat have landed some- where on the coast, probably at the bead of the railway to Pekin. All that is certain, however, is that the Japanese warships patrol the Gulf of Pechili, and that they have an immense fleet of large transports.
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