Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1901 — FROM FOREIGN LANDS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FROM FOREIGN LANDS

After negotiating with each other for several months the envoys of the powers at Pekin signed the preliminary demands upon the Chinese government, and they were formally presented to Prince Ching, Li-Hung-Chang being too ill to pose as a joint recipient. The terms imposed on China are, as long ago decided upon, rigorous in the extreme. China must pay j an indemnity, make abject apologies to j Germany and Japan, punish the Boxer j leaders, including seven members of the ; royal family, raze the forts protecting Pekin, permit permanent guards around fortified legations, and cease the manu> facture of munitions of war. It is now reported at Pekin and Shanghai that China will not accept the terms; that the Emperor hesitates to behead the princes, that he does not wish to destroy his forts, and that he fears the presence of permanent legation troops in Pekin. If the Chinese imperial authorities persist in refusing the terms it remains for the powers to decide upon a new program. A hew program is to be dreaded above all things, for it may mean quarrels between the rivals for influence in the far East and bring about partition of the Chinese empire, or eveu a general war. The meetiug of the shareholders of the Panama Canal Company in Paris on Thursday developed the fact that, while the directors of the company hope to transfer the enterprise to the United States government, the individual holdera of the stock a?e opposed to American I control of the waterway. For some un- ] known reason few people of the United j States take the Panama canal enterprise seriously. The De Lesseps failure, however, was far from sounding the death knell to the project. According to scientific journals, the difficult engineering problems have been solved and thousands of men are being continually employed. Work has been opened up along the entire length of the canal. Fifteen of the forty-six miles have bveen dredged to the full width of the proposed waterway, and t oa depth of from sixteen to twenty-nine and one-half feet. In a word, two-fifths of the work on the great enterprise has practically been completed. Little seems to have come of the Boer ■invasion of Cape Colony. The Dutch residents of the British colony have not risen en masse to join the burghers, who nre making a desperate resistance to Lotd Kitchener's army, and the invading columns themselves have been so closely pursued that they have been com peliod to abandon several guns and many carts. In the Orange Free State the generals are making a strenuous effaort to capture Gen. De Wet, who is reported to be cornered—again—in the vicinity of Thaba N’Chu, in the western part of the territory. Numerous minor engagements are reported d#ily in which the Boers seem to be holding their own. The people of Cape Town presented to Lord Roberts a sword of honor, l’n his speedh he lauded Lord Kitchener nnd Sir Alfred Milner. * The Grand Vizier nnd other Turkish dignitaries were present at a dinner in honor of the officers of the United States battleship Kentucky. The Sultan also received them. An official report shows the water plant owned and operated by the municipality of Paris netted a profit of 15,000,000 francs ($8,000,000) during 1900. A small municipal electric ligtit plant, started as an experiment two years ago, cleared 900,000 francs ($180,000). The year’s statistics show that more than 10,000 alcoholic patients were admitted to thirteea Paris hospitals. The treatment and maintenance of these desperate drunkards cost the city more than 2,000,000 francs <S4OO.O<Y