A very disagreeable telegram from China was received in Lon-
don last Saturday, announcing that the Chinese Government had informed the Ministers at Pekin that it would not. be responsible for the safety of foreigners in Tien-tsin, they being menaced by inflammatory placards. This statement, if true, means that the Emperor does not choose to have foreigners in Tien-tsin, as there is no place where they could be more easily protected, nor does the Emperor over announce himself incompetent to do any- thing. No confirmation of the story has been received, and it may have arisen only from some expression of a Chinese official, inflated by the victories over the Mohammedan converts. It seems certain that the Imperial Government either has a strong army in Western China—armed, as we reported some months ago, with rifles—or that it has found a great General. In either case we should not be surprised to hear that an attack had been made upon the Ataligh Ghazee, who holds a Chinese province, an attack which may give us almost as much trouble as a massacre. Chinese generals inflated with victory are not pleasant neighbours north of the "hole in the wall," the pass which Mr. Forsyth has just traver.e1.
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