War in the East.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 190, 16 August 1904, Page 4

War in the East .

WHEN KUROPATKIN IS READY. HIGH LIFE IN HARPING. WAR DELAYS. Harping, writes Mr Charles Hands, the representative of the Daily Mail with the Russian army, begins to breathe tiie unmistakable odours that I have learned in idle base towns of other campaigns to recognise as the symptoms of warfare. Tampa, Florida, is away down in the Western tropics, and Capetown, Cape Colony, is at the other oxtremity of the Old World, and Harping, Manchuria, is in the very middle of the remotest northern suburb of no-

where, as far away from Capetown, S.A., and from Tampa (Fla.), as Brondesbury is from Lewisham and 'looting Bee. But whether it be whore the sun rises or where the sun sets,, or where the Southern Cross swings aloft its distorted kite, the base town American, English, or Russian develops the swne distinctive feature, the same atmosphere, or so many points of resemblance between one army and another that the points of dilierence between one town and another are forgotten. I was not in ancient Greece at the time of the mobil'isation of the army for the expedition, against the J i ojans, but I fancy 1 have a very good idea of what it was iike. I am certain that there was a great deal Of sweet wine drunk at the lloimt l'lympus Hotel, and that as they called for fresh bottles the Athenian ofiicers who had looked in for a parting glass, and to discuss the pi obabilities of a start being made on the morrow, assured one another that against an army like theirs the paltry resources of Troy would not be able to oiler a week's resistance.

1 am sure that when the morrow came it was' found Unit, owing to tl,e unexpected delay in the fieriv;, 1 of some indispensable .supplies, the start would lie unavoidably postponed until to-morrow, or perhaps the next day. Awl weeks of tomorrows and months of to-morrows went by, and still the expedition did not start, and very young oilicers dared almost, openly to assert that Agamemnon was 100 old for the job and that the dilierence between himsljlf and Achilles were the cause of all the want of preparation muddle and delay. I fancy that after a few months the irritation of the endless delay gave place to a sorL of careless acceptance of the situation, that Ulys«s got permission for his wife to come and slay in the camp, that a very serious, quiet young oflicer surprised everybody by marring the most popular of the singing girls, to the great amusement of his comrades, and that an impression generally established itself that the war was never going to begin, that nothing was ever going to happen, that nothing mattered, and that the Jewish gentlemen, though hardly the kind of persons that an ofl.cer should associate with, were all right in a hple of a place like this, and certainly spent their money very freely.

there is general expression of the belief that as soon as Kuropatkin is ready he will walk through Korea ike a mowing machine, and that in two weeks the Japanese will be in the sea, and there is an equally general admission that the outbreak of hostilities found our side utterly and lamentably unprepared !

Ami there is slome reason to suppose that tho people who acquaint the Japanese with every movement and preparations in Harping are not always Japs disguised, or even Mongols and Manchus who lounge about tho railway station with no sign of intelligence in their expressionless yellow faces, but a good deal of observation in their slanting slits of eyes'. There are white men in the town who would do anything for money. Harping has been largely colonised by the surplus population of the interesting island of Kaghulien and other Russian penal settlements. It was a free town at first ill which passports were not demanded, and gentlemen who had contrived to escape from the island, anil whose capture was not very anxiously desired so long.as the Government allowance for their maintenance continued to lie paid, made their way to Harping nn:l applied themselves to their trades.

it is the worst of bad taste to mention Saghalien in Harping society. as it is estimated that 75 per cent, of the Russian civil population would be made uncomfortable |i\ any such reference. Nor is the difficult question of tile provision of labour for mines at all a popular subject ol discussion. Theiv are said to be more murderers in Harking than in any other (own in the world ,-ili nelU , ( '' V iM '■"ninierual Liicles has three poisoned men to her lecord—two hushiMKis and a lover —and her present husband received a liie suntence. Kvery other crime of violence is abundantly represented, and there is no means of making money dishonestly which some Harping resident, would not recognise as his proper metier. Before the war brought the protection of the military, murders were of daily occurrence, and no one dreamed of going out without a revolver ready in his hand. During the past winter a jeweller's shop was held up and rifled in tho afternoon.

Meanwhile our preparations continue ; troops, stores, supplies, munitions, artillery, arrive and proceed ecwtliKaixl with such unceasing rapidity that one wonders whether at the beginning of war we had any military strength at all, except, perhaps, the garrisons of Fort Arthur

and Vladivostok. And, meanwhile, we arc the happiest, chcerfulest of communities, enjoying- the spring sunshine and the awout do-nothing-of the war that seems to be nover going to commence. iiut I have enjoyed that sensation iKiforo, and I know very well that one line morning, when we least expect it, we shall find the war in lull swing, and ourselves in the midst of it.