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68 "I don't doubt it; but you can't believe all that is reported, for the Chinese hold a good many lines of communication."

"It looks to me as if China was defying the whole civilized world."

"They don't want our religion or our people, and they don't want us to come over there and show them how to do things and to make improvements. They want to be left severely alone."

"But we have lots of Chinamen in our country."

"True enough; but the stay-at-home Celestial believes that his neighbor ought to stay at home, too. The average Chinaman, so I've heard, doesn't believe in moving about; and millions of them have never been fifty miles from home in their lives. They know absolutely nothing of the outside world, and our civilization is a closed book to them."

"Do you know how many troops the government intends to send to China?"

"I've heard that it is to be upward of ten thousand. General Chaffee is to leave San Francisco with some troops soon,—or he has left already,—and, when he arrives, he is to take command of the American forces on land."