ur seas under one common brotherhood."

An amusing circumstance was the utter bewilderment of the Regent of
China, Prince Kung, as to how he could reward Gordon. The money offered
he had refused for himself, and as for honours and distinctions they
had no charms for him. He accepted the yellow jacket, the highest
distinction the Chinese Emperor could confer (corresponding to our
Knight of the Garter), but this he did only to please his parents, not
because he valued it himself. Prince Kung called on the English
Minister at Shanghai and said, "You will be surprised to see me again,
but I felt I could not allow you to leave without coming to see you
about Gordon. We do not know what to do. He will not receive money from
us, and we have already given him every honour which it is in the power
of the Emperor to bestow; but as these can be of little value in his
eyes, I have brought you this letter, and ask you to give it to the
Queen of England, that she may bestow on him some reward which would be
more valuable in his eyes."

Gordon had already been awarded a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy in the
Royal Engineers, so he was now made a Commander of the Bath; but he was
as indifferent to English honours as to those of the Chinese. As for
Prince Kung's letter to Queen Victoria, we are informed by Mr. Hake
that he has good reason to believe it never reached the Queen, but was
allowed to remain in a pigeon-hole in the Foreign Office! Well may we
quote the words of Axel Oxenstiern to his son, to which the late Prince
Consort once referred in a letter to the late Emperor of Germany, at
that time Crown Prince of Prussia, "Oh, my son, mark how little wisdom
goes to the government of states." Mr. Hake also informs us that when
General Gordon presented himself at the War Office, the Secretary of
State seemed hardly to have heard his name, and knew nothing of his
work in China. Yet this was the man that at the age of thirty had saved
from ruin the largest empire of the world! We are indeed a marvellous
people. We are always manufacturing sham heroes, and parading them
before the world. Yet when we have a real one in our midst we utterly
ignore him. When one thinks of the many campaigns in which England has
been engaged since the Chinese war was over, the public may well be
astonished at a military system which allowed one of its ablest
soldiers to live in obscurity, and not even be consulted in the affairs
of the nation. Sir William Butle