value received or Russian currency. It is estimated that millions of dollars were "squeezed" out of the Chinese population by this process, which represented, as a rule, a dead loss to those classes which can least afford it. Later the war notes recovered somewhat, and when I was last in Manchuria the ordinary receiver, who took them at par, did not lose on an average more than ten per cent. Thus, with produce rising in value and growing scarcer, with prices and wages declining, and a depreciated currency backed by no specie reserve so far as I could learn, but which they were compelled to accept, it is no wonder that the Chinese in Manchuria grew discontented. The average Chinese is incapable of clearly reasoning from cause to effect through a period of any extent, and he naturally, as he compares his present situation with his prosperity under Russian control, attributes his misfortunes entirely to the Japanese administration. And there is no doubt that the Japanese, in their personal relations with them, treat the Chinese with more severity than did the Russians. This statement will surprise many whose idea of a Russian is represented by the pictures which in a time of disorder in Russia are kept standing with slight alterations in the London illustrated newspapers, and in which a Cossack is usually represented applying a knout to some unfortunate, or impaling a child upon his lance. But I assert it to be substantially a fact, nevertheless. An English resident of Manchuria, in speaking to me upon the way the Japanese authorities have succeeded
