THE ARENA.

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE IN CHINA A MENACE TO THE WORLD. FOR six years I have been living under the shadow of the black plague. I have watched it spread its somber wings over this region like a bird of prey. I have seen the twilight deepen into starless night. In the early years a majority of the cases that received prompt and intelligent attention recovered. There were several simple remedies that were more or less effective. Year by year the form of the scourge has become more fatal. Now the news that anyone has the plague is almost equivalent in sadness to the word that he is dead. Foreign physicians are apparently no more successful in its treatment than native quacks, or even necromancers. This terrible fatality is not confined to the interior regions of these southern provinces of China. Nor are we dependent entirely upon uncollated guesses, and limited personal observations of individuals, from which to draw our inferences. Look at the official statistics of the plague in the British colony of Hongkong for this season up to June 24, 1902:

These figures tell their own story. Even in Hongkong, where the British government has been exerting itself to the utmost for ten years to discover a remedy, and to fight this fell destroyer with the best sanitary measures, the chances of life for a Chinese stricken with the bubonic plague are as one to thirty-seven against him. Other Asiatics have a much lower death rate, because, as a rule, they are well-to-do business men, better fed and more promptly cared for; while Europeans have a probability of recovery nearly as one to three in their favor, for much the same reasons, only more so. But why has the government of Hongkong had such poor success in this ten years' fight? It surely has not been because of indifference. No effort has been spared to stamp it out. It has been too serious a menace to trade to permit of carelessness. Commerce is the sole excuse for the existence of the colony, and whatever injures this no British official can afford to treat with indifference. Nor has there been any lack of the best medical skill. These physicians of the government are picked men, trained by many years of practical experience in the Far East. What is the matter? Look at your map of South China. See how close Hongkong lies to Canton, and all that

vast populous valley whence this modern visitation of the scourge of Asia and of the world issued forth upon its fatal crusade. As fast as the medical officer cleans up the British emporium of the Far East, a fresh consignment of the plague poison is shipped in from the adjoining province. It is impossible to maintain an effective quarantine unless communication with the mainland is cut off entirely, and that would mean financial ruin to Hongkong. We may take it for granted that as long as the plague is rampant in the hinterland the foreign settlement will fight it in vain. The best that can be done is to reduce the number of cases. To stamp it out will be impossible. But if the small though populous island of Victoria off the coast of China cannot be kept free of this penetrating and deadly poison by all the skill and zeal of modern science, how about the hundreds of larger islands but five hundred miles away that now float the stars and stripes? In Manila alone there are fifty thousand Chinese, mostly traders, who handle goods from their native land in great quantities. How will it be possible to quarantine this immense archipelago against its big next-door neighbor that reeks in its own filth and generates plague poison as a Florida swamp breeds insects? Japan is making a noble fight against the dread monster, but in Formosa hundreds have died this year, and there is no apparent abatement in spite of modern methods scientifically applied by skilled Japanese medical officers. The trade between Formosa and the plague-infected district of Amoy is so constant and large that quarantine measures are as ineffective as they have been in Hongkong. The other islands of Japan have thus far succeeded tolerably well in preventing a spread of the disease, but how long will it be possible to keep it up if Shanghai becomes infected as Hongkong has been? The reason Shanghai has so far escaped is that the plague has not yet reached the Yang-tse valley. It is traveling steadily up the coast. It is slower to go overland than by water, but its march is resistless, and its final onslaught upon the defenseless inhabitants of that most populous country in the world will be overwhelming. One shudders to contemplate the havoc that this mysterious enemy of mankind will make among the two hundred millions of human beings that are crowded upon the vast plain of central China. This is no imaginary picture. I have watched the sable procession pass by, moving year by year farther north. It reached Foochow several years ago, but not in its most virulent form, and for commercial reasons it was kept quiet. This summer Foochow is known as an "infected port," and the natives claim that there have been at least thirty thousand deaths of plague among its million inhabitants. In a few years it will certainly reach Ningpo, the port of the only intervening province of Chekiang, and from there Shanghai will be at its mercy. When that day comes what system of quarantine will be effective to save Japan and America and all European countries from an experience of this most mysterious and fatal disease the world has ever known? Europeans in Asia are

comparatively free from it because they live in the best sanitary conditions, but let it get a hold in the slums of our cities and the havoc would be only less than it is among the Chinese themselves. A recent cablegram tells of a vessel arriving at Marseilles from the Far East with fifteen cases of the plague on board. Another ship from China arrived at San Diego, California, with eight plague patients, and five had died on the voyage. These are only two straws, but the air will be full of them, and the breeze will become a hurricane in a few more years, if China is allowed to continue to concoct death potions for all the world. Suppose the Western countries do succeed by most rigid methods in preventing a general spread of the epidemic in their ports, can the world afford to be kept on the rack of fear and suspicion year after year? Can commerce afford to be strangled by these constant quarantines and limitations to a free trade? The cost of a "yellow-fever scare" in America in stoppage of trade alone always ran up into many millions. Imagine such a scare as the chronic state of all nations having dealings with China, spread it through twelve months in the year, drag it out for a decade or longer, and then answer the question, Has the outside world any interest in the present plague-polluted condition of southern China?

Is there any hope of the government of China intelligently grappling with the problem? After six years of careful attention, I have yet to hear of a single Chinese official in the interior instituting any method intelligent or otherwise to alleviate the ravages of the plague, except the offering of sacrifices to idols. They do not know what to do even were they enterprising enough to want to do something. The present magistrate of this county is the most active and efficient officer we have ever had here in my residence of eleven years. He is a man of no mean intelligence, too. But he recently showed me how he had exchanged the foreign lamps in his yamen for peanut oil native saucers because he was told that kerosene caused the plague! A moment's reflection and a very little information would have told him that as the kerosene came from America, where the plague was unknown, his theory was a delusion. There is no hope whatever that the existing Chinese government will take the initiative in fighting this monster; and there is, if possible, still less ground to believe that any efforts the native officials could make would be any improvement upon their present inactivity. Indeed, it is more likely they would make the situation worse than better. I acknowledge that even though they had the will and the necessary knowledge the difficulties from the people would be very great. For example, the street that runs past our compound in Hinghua City is drained by a covered gutter; the flagstones are far enough apart to allow the surface water to run in. The drain is ample for any rain, but even a heavy shower floods part of the street for hours because our neighbor, a powerful literary graduate, will not clean out the part of the drain that runs in front of his house, nor will he permit anyone else to do it for him, because of a widespread superstition that

to remove that mass of filth would bring him ill luck. Only a strong government could clean up China.

But since something ought to be done by the foreign Powers to protect themselves, it follows that something can be done. If the world could send fifty thousand troops to rescue a few hundred foreigners in imminent danger of their lives in Peking during the summer of 1900, it is hardly reasonable to claim that these Powers cannot interfere in a matter that is a menace to the whole world. It is plain that foreign knowledge and enterprise must be requisitioned if any effective measures are taken. Any sanitary department organized in China by the government must be officered by foreigners. As the Chinese authorities show no disposition to take the initiative, the foreign governments should do it for them. America is the country best situated to originate such a scheme. The government at Washington is now popular at Peking. America's new possessions are nearest to the plague-infected provinces. Japan would make a good second, and her personal interests in the matter are first among the Powers. British interests are also deeply involved. With the ready indorsement that Japan and England would surely give, America could easily secure the cooperation of all the Powers in bringing before China the proposition that in each of the infected provinces a Sanitary Department be immediately organized by the government of China under foreign supervision, with ample funds at its command, whose special business it should be to fight the bubonic plague. When the infected area enlarges to other provinces the new department should be extended to that territory. Such a proposition is so manifestly reasonable and friendly that it could hardly encounter any serious opposition; but if it does, then the Powers should bring to bear upon Chinese authorities whatever pressure is necessary to accomplish their purpose. Such a department should be as far as possible officered by medical men with considerable experience of China and her people. The work would at best encounter many difficulties, but these would be multiplied by official ignorance of the peculiarities of the people. The work would require tact as well as firmness. However, the medical missionaries and physicians in the ports of South China furnish ample material from which to select capable and experienced men for this important and difficult task. What could a sanitary department of government accomplish under such adverse conditions as exist in this the dirtiest, densest population on the globe? I own the task is Herculean. To carry it out as in a Western country is altogether impossible; every city and town would have to be rebuilt in order to do that. But any. thing is better than nothing. For example, it is now almost im. possible for the people in the interior to buy disinfectants; and when they do they are ignorant of how to use them. Good disinfectants, at cost prices, sold everywhere, with full instructions as to their use, would be a very great step and save many lives. But if left to private enterprise it will never be done. Plague hospitals

could be established, patients isolated, infected houses cleansed, and the horror of helplessness in the face of this monster might be alleviated, if not removed. This plan would make it possible for China to profit by the investigations, experiments, and discoveries of the eminent scientists that are at work under the governments of other countries seeking a remedy for this terror of the nations. In India tens of thousands of the people are being inoculated, and it is claimed to be partially effective in preventing attacks of the disease. In Formosa the Japanese medical officer has inoculated seven thousand in one city. But it is not possible for our medical men here, only one hundred and fifty miles away, to secure one drop of this serum, nor do they know how to use it. Whether or not this method is an acknowledged success is not the question. The point I wish especially to emphasize is that, whatever success may be achieved elsewhere in dealing with this pestilence, without a government sanitary department, the Chinese will not be able to avail themselves of it to any extent. Private enterprise cannot meet the case at all. This is true in all countries, and more so in China than in any other, because of the backward conditions existing here. The world has passed the time when any civilized nation can live unto itself. Only a Cain can sneeringly ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" China cannot say, "These are my people; it is my business. Hands off!" In the Federation of the World let the Parliament of Man in solemn session assembled declare, The condition of China is a nuisance that should be abated. Both philanthropy and the instinct of self-preservation call loudly for immediate, united, effective action by the Powers to bring China into line with all the rest of the world in fighting their common foe, the bubonic plague.

Hinghua, Fuhkien Province, China.

WILLIAM N. BREWSTER.

"AGNOSTICISM AT THE GRAVE."

SOME time ago a very interesting article on the above subject appeared in the Review. Much as I dislike George Eliot in many aspects of her life, faith, and action, I think injustice has been done the men of eminence whose names are used in connection with her death. These men, Darwin, Mill, and Spencer, are classed among the unbelievers. I think they would deny this charge. Mill took a very dangerous stand in many things pertaining to religion. But why? Because of the blue, stiff Calvinism which prevailed in his day. He and Darwin and doubtless Spencer grew disgusted at the unwisdom and lack of charity and of Christlikeness found in the Church. It was not disbelief in Christian character that drove them away from the historic Church, but disbelief in their dogmatic theology in the face of scientific findings which afterward were accepted by Christian thinkers.

The supposed speech at the grave is wholly fiction, and would not