Random Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 23, 1 September 1894, Page 8

Random Notes.

This mundane sphere seems to have much contracted in diameter since the days when Marco Polo brought back his traveller’s tales from far Cathay. Indeed Chinese Gordon himself would find that the Celestial empire is much nearer toEurope than in the days of the Taipings. The ‘ shrinking of the globe,’ of which geologists tell us, accounts for much, and doubtless explains the interest of Western civilisation in the two belligerent nations of the Orient.

A century ago tlie Chinese and Japs might have spent all their waking hours in spitting each other with, their antique weapons of war, and European statesmen would have paid as little attention to them as to the conflicts of the kites and the crows, Now, however, things are changed. Both of these eastern nations are now possessed of the play-things of mod* ern Europe—ironclads, torpedos, magazine rifles, et hoc genus omne. Having secured a number of these toys, our Celestial friends are anxious to show their skill in using them, and the civilised world looks on with deepest interest. With their obsolete bows and arrows the Chinese even in their myriads were a despicable foe, but when able to use the torpedo boats.by sea and the magazine rifle by land, a Chinaman, after a training in European military tactics, might prove himself an enemy that required due consideration. Hence the dreams of' visionaries of a Mongol invasion of western lands is not so improbable as it may at first sight appear !

Who knows but even at our own doors we may see the yellow dragon flying in the breeze, and find our port, the Bluff, laid under contribution to the heathen Chinee, or possibly (dbsit omen !), discover that his Excellency the Governor hails from the Elowery Land, to which our tribute shall annually flow instead of to the bloated British capitalist.