As soon as they were settled at the hotel, they went out for a stroll through the city, and to deliver letters to several gentlemen residing there. They had some trouble in finding the houses they were searching for, as the foreigners at Shanghai do not consider it aristocratic to have signs on their doors or gate-posts, and a good deal of inquiry is necessary for a stranger to make his way about. If a man puts out a sign, he is regarded as a tradesman, and unfit to associate with the great men of the place; but as long as there is no sign or placard about his premises he is a merchant, and his company is desirable, especially if he is free with his money. A tradesman cannot gain admission to the Shanghai Club, and the same is the rule at Hong-Kong and other ports throughout the East. But there is no bar to the membership of his clerk; and it not infrequently happens that a man will be refused admission to a club on account of his occupation, while his clerk will be found eligible. There are many senseless rules of society in the East, and our boys were greatly amused as the Doctor narrated them. "The Nan-kow Pass is about thirteen miles long, and the road through it is very rough. The mountains are steep, and we saw here and there ruins of forts that were built long ago to keep out the Tartar invaders of China. Our animals had several falls, but they got through without accident, and, what was more, they brought us to a village where there was an inn with something good to eat. I was in the sweetest consternation. With the end of her braid once more in my fingers I made her promise to keep the dark secret, and so recited them. He hiccoughed. "Let's--s'--see y' orders." "Wallabaloo," said the Clockwork man, faintly, "Wum！Wum！" It occurred to the Doctor that here was an opportunity to investigate certain matters. The man's eyes were perhaps the worst part of him--dull, red, and bloated, full of a certain ferocious cowardliness. They were the eyes of a man who drank to excess. The red rims twitched. "No one to help me at all?" she pleaded. Her voice was low, but she shook with passion. The big financier growled out that he would trust her to ♀50. In two minutes this was gone, and the banker made no further sign. "Now tell me about it, Louis," she said. As soon as the weakness was passed, she followed Leona Lalage. She heard the latter fumbling with the sash of the drawing-room window, she felt the sudden rush of air. The owner of the house had barely reached the garden before Hetty was after her. It was all for Gordon's sake, she told herself; for him she would do anything.
"Pooh, I am not afraid," she said, with easy contempt. "Say on, say on." 5. The boiler is the main part, where power is generated, and the engine is but an agent for transmitting this power to the work performed. To this classification may be added combination wheels, acting partly by the gravity and partly by the percussion force of the water, by impact combined with reaction, or by impact and maintained pressure. Pressure wheels, like gravity wheels, should, from theoretical inference, be expected to give a high per cent. of power. The water resting with the whole of its weight against the vanes or abutments, and without chance of escape except by turning the wheel, seems to meet the conditions of realising the whole effect due to the gravity of the water, and such wheels would no doubt be economical if they had not to contend with certain mechanical difficulties that render them impracticable in most cases. A pattern-maker no sooner sees a casting than he imagines the kind of pattern employed in moulding it; a moulder will imagine the plan of moulding and casting a piece; while an engineer will criticise the arrangement, proportions, adaptation, and general design, and if skilled, as he ought to be, will also detect at a glance any useless expense in patterns or moulding. CHAPTER VIII Farther on in the Rue de la Station lay nine rotting carcases of horses, the intestines oozing from the bodies, and a greasy substance was poured over their skin. The stench was unbearable and made breathing nearly impossible, which compelled me to jump on my bicycle and escape as quickly as possible from the pestilential surroundings. In this relative calm the population felt somewhat relieved, and ventured again into the streets. Outdoors on the "stoeps" of the houses men sat on their haunches smoking their pipe and playing a game of piquet. Most of them were vigorous fellows, miners, who did not mind any amount of work, but now came slowly under the demoralising influence of idleness. The Germans had flung some more bridges across the river beyond Andenne, which had been used for the occupation of Namur chiefly, and lay idle now guarded by only one sentry. I left by the town-gate without any difficulties; the German soldiers jumped out of the way and stood to atten153tion, as soon as they noticed the Netherland flag flying at the front of the motor. To the right and the left of the gateway they had written in gigantic letters: "Newspapers, please!" Next to Temperance comes Fortitude; and with it the difficulties of reconciling Epicureanism with the ordinary morality are considerably increased. The old conception of this virtue was willingness to face pain and death on behalf of a noble cause,138 which would be generally understood to mean the salvation of family, friends, and fatherland; and the ultimate sanction of such self-devotion was found in the pressure of public opinion. Idealistic philosophy, taking still higher ground, not69 only refused to balance the fear of pain and death against the fear of infamy or the hope of applause, but added public opinion to the considerations which a good man in the discharge of his duty would, if necessary, despise. Epicurus also inculcated disregard for reputation, except when it might lead to inconveniences of a tangible description;139 but he had nothing beyond the calculations of self-interest to put in its place. A modern utilitarian is bound to undergo loss and suffering in his own person for the prevention of greater loss and suffering elsewhere; an egoistic hedonist cannot consistently be brave, except for the sake of his own future security. The method by which Epicurus reconciled interest with courage was to minimise the importance of whatever injuries could be inflicted by external circumstances; just as in his theory of Temperance he had minimised the importance of bodily pleasures. How he disposed of death will best be seen in connexion with his physical philosophy. Pain he encountered by emphasising, or rather immensely exaggerating, the mind¨s power of annulling external sensation by concentrating its whole attention on remembered or anticipated pleasures, or else on the certainty that present suffering must come to an end, and to a more speedy end in proportion to its greater severity. We are to hold a fire in our hand, partly by thinking of the frosty Caucasus, partly by the comforting reflection that the pain of a burn, being intense, will not be of long duration; while, at worst, like the Stoics, we have the resource of suicide as a last refuge from intolerable suffering.140 However, to resume. Do you want me to tell you a secret that I've Do you wish to do something, Daddy, that will ensure your On the great banyan trees in the garden, and on every palm, torpid vultures sit in the sun, awaiting the meal that will come with the next funeral procession. Between the tracery of bamboos, behind clumps of cedars spreading their level plumes of fine, flexible needles, we still constantly saw the roofs of temples involved in clouds of tiny phosphorescent sparks weaving their maze of light; and the clang of bells and drums fell on the ear. A port crowded with steamers taking in coal, and very light barks high out of the water, kept in equilibrium by parallel outriggers at the ends of two flexible spars. These crank boats, made of[Pg 124] planks that scarcely overlap, were piled with luggage, and the boatmen jostle and turn and skim close under the fast-steaming transatlantic liners, amid a bewildering babel of shouts and oaths, under a sun hot enough to melt lead.
Legends have gathered round the Taj Mahal as about every old building in India, and this one seems to me not impossible in its barbarity. In the afternoon the soldiers tilted on horseback, four on a side. They tried to unhorse each other; two or three would attack one, succeeding at last in rolling him off under his charger, while they in their turn were attacked by others, ending in a m┷l└e, where the victors and the vanquished left fragments of their thin shirts. "I want you to read them and act upon them," he said. "You'll have to put that Corner House business out of your head for a day or two at any rate. It appears that a gang of cosmopolitan swindlers have established their headquarters somewhere in Soho, and by means of using several addresses they are getting a tremendous quantity of goods which they proceed to turn into money. Here is one of their advertisements cut from the Standard. You had better answer it, and get in touch with the fellows that way. But nobody can manage that sort of thing better than you." ＾Looks bad, this-here, don¨t it?￣ He grinned. Jeff cut the gun. ＾He¨s harnessed to a parachute！there goes the ripcord!￣ Sandy would have leaped to his feet but for his restraining safety belt. ＾They were as empty as our heads!￣ Larry was dispirited. Dick, clinging with all his strength to a wiry, supple powerful body, strove to keep that hold while he captured the hands that were pounding at his neck and averted face. Then she tried to read, but the whisper of savagery was in the loneliness and the night. She sat with the book open in her lap, staring into a shadowy corner where there leaned an Indian lance, surmounted by a war bonnet. Presently she stood up, and stretched her limbs slowly, as a beast of prey does when it shakes off the lethargy of the day and wakens for the darkness. Then she went out to the back of the tents. The citizens rode off. The adjutant agreed reluctantly. "I think there is. It wouldn't surprise me if some one had been talking. I can't get at it. But you must not bother about it. It will blow over." Felipa, from her place on the couch, smiled lazily, with a light which was not all from the fire in her half-closed eyes. She put out her hand, and he took it in both his own and held it against his cold cheek as he dropped down beside her. She laid her head on his shoulder, and for a while neither of them spoke.
She gave a dry little sob of unutterable glad relief and tried to raise her voice and call to him, the call they used for one another when they rode about the ranch. But the sound was only a weak, low wail. No sooner was the sentence passed than his judges were seized with a vehement desire to procure a pardon for the admiral. They made the most urgent entreaties to the Admiralty for that purpose, and Captain Augustus Keppel authorised Horace Walpole to say that he and four others of the members of the Council had something of importance to communicate, and desired to be relieved from their oath of secresy. The House of Commons was quite ready to pass a Bill for the purpose, and the king respited the admiral till all such inquiries had been made. But when the Bill had been passed by one hundred and fifty-three to twenty-three, it turned out that these five officers had nothing of consequence to disclose. Still Lord Temple, who was at the head of the Admiralty, was greatly averse from the carrying out of the sentence, which, in fact, was much disproportioned to the crime. Pitt also interceded with the king, and renewed applications were made to the Admiralty; but, on the other hand, the people were smarting under the loss of Minorca, and demanded the execution of the sentence. Hand-bills were posted up, "Hang Byng, or take care of the King." The House of Lords, when the Commons' Bill was carried up to them, however, settled the matter. Murray and Lord Hardwicke demanded of every member of the court-martial at the bar of the House whether they knew of any matter which showed their sentence to be unjust, or to have been influenced by any undue motive; and as all declared they did not, the Lords dismissed the Bill. The[126] sentence was therefore fixed for execution on the 14th of March. Byng, both during the trial, and now when brought on board the Monarch in Portsmouth Harbour to be shot, showed no symptoms of fear. When one of his friends, to prevent a man from coming in to measure Byng for his coffin, said, standing up by him, "Which of us is the taller?" Byng immediately replied, "Why this ceremony? I know what it means; let the man measure me for a coffin." On the deck he wished to have his eyes left unbound; but when told it might frighten the soldiers and distract their aim, he said, "Let it be done, then; if it would not frighten them, they would not frighten me." He fell dead at the discharge (March 14, 1757). THE Deacon had been afraid to telegraph directly to his wife that he was bringing the boys home. He knew the deadly alarm that would seize mother and daughters at the very sight of the yellow telegraph envelope directed to them. They would interpret it to mean that Si was dead, and probably in their grief fail to open the envelope and read the message. So at Jeffersonville he sent a message to Sol Pringle, the agent and operator at the station. The Deacon remembered the strain the former message had been on the young operator's intelligence, besides he himself was not used to writing messages, and so, regardless of expense, he conveyed his thoughts to Sol in this wise: "O, go on! Grind down upon me. You'll be wantin' to send me to a Lincoln bastile next. But a day will come when white men'll have their rights agin." "Not a farmer, storekeeper or stock-buyer," Shorty mentally sized him up, "Looks more like a hickory lawyer, herb-doctor or tin-horn gambler. What's he doin' in this caboose? Up to some devilment, no doubt. He'll bear watchin'." With that he crowded in between Maria and Shorty and gave his sister a shove to send her forward. Shorty flared up at the interference. Acute as his suffering was under Maria's tongue, he would rather endure it than not have her with him. Anyhow, it was a matter between him and her, with which Si had no business. Si and Shorty turned to give directions about packing up the shelter-tents and blankets for carrying. Let angels prostrate fall. Marvor bent toward him. "Why is it right?" he asked. "Thanks," she said. "Here." "Not quite," Dodd said. "For instance, we don't know about you. You have！well, you have got mates, haven't you? Hell, of course you do. Male or female. Same as us. More or less."
Get it through your head that this has nothing to do with the Board elections. This is a serious matter. I can stop you, J. O., and don't think I won't if it comes to that. But I don't want to make threats. For the next few months Odiam was in a transitional state. It was gradually being divested of its old comfortable ways, and clad in new garments of endeavour. Gradually the life grew harder, and gradually the tense thought, the knife-edged ambition at the back of all the changes, came forward and asserted themselves openly. She wished, with all the wormwood that lies in useless regrets, that she had never married. Then, paradoxically, she would not have been so utterly alone. She would have had at least the help of sweet memories undefiled. She could have taken refuge in them from her sorrow, built them perhaps at last into hope. Now she had to thrust them from her, for they were one and all soiled by her unfaithfulness. "Yes," he said huskily！"it is." Thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone except Rose, and in time they grew wretched for her too. She began to tire of the cracklings of the flame she had kindled, of Reuben's continued distrust and suspicion, of Caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of Peter's spying contempt. The time of her lying-in drew nearer, she had to give up her gay doings, and felt frightened and alone. Everyone was against her, everyone disapproved of her. She began to wish that she had not found her love for Handshut to be an illusion, to wish that the kiss beside the Glotten brook had been in reality what she had dreamed it.... After all, is it not better to embrace the god and die than to go through the unhappy days in darkness? Caro read it. Rose was in London, but left that day for Liverpool. Handshut had saved a little money, and they were going to Canada. "I don't ask Ben to forgive me, for I know he never will." "Then git 'em out, you fool! You'll have the whole pl?ace a bonfire in a minnut. Wot's the use of throwing mugs of water lik this? You'll never put them ricks out. S?ave your horses, s?ave your cows, s?ave your poultry. Anyone gone for the firemen?" For a moment Calverley's brow contracted; but striving to look interested for the man he wished to conciliate, he replied, "Yes, Byles, it is a pity that a good-hearted yeoman like you should not prosper as well as a mere mushroom. Now, Byles, I know you are a discreet man, and I will tell you a piece of news that nobody about the barony has yet heard. My lord is going to be married！yes, Byles, he leaves Sudley in a few days, and goes again to London, and he will shortly return with a fair and noble mistress for the castle." "What! Is this your embroidery?" He then put on the black cap and slowly commenced the sentence. The life that had seemed to have departed from the still and contracted form, rallied for a moment！the eyes unclosed and fixed on the appalled countenance of Skipwith; and, when the concluding invocation of mercy for the soul of the criminal fell tremulously from the lips of the judge, she, in a voice low but distinct, answered "Amen!" and then a slight tremor and a faint gasp released the soul of Edith. "Are they spirits?" asked the stranger in a subdued and terrified tone. Margaret did not immediately accede to his wish, and the monk looked at her with a strange inquisitiveness！something crossed his mind, but what could he suspect? He again asked Margaret, but she still hesitated. He started from his seat, and paced up and down the floor. He then stopped suddenly before the bed. Margaret had laid down the infant, and had covered it with the bed-clothes. "Are you leaders too? By the green wax! I suppose I shall see the ghost of the ferret among the good commons next! But mind ye, galleyman！not a syllable that we ever met!" glancing his eyes at Holgrave. "It was you who shot the arrow?" "I don't understand your lordship," at length tremblingly articulated Mary.Xi extends condolences over Hong Kong building fire, urges all-out rescue efforts to minimize losses
(Xinhua) 08:02, November 27, 2025
BEIJING, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday extended condolences over a deadly residential building fire in Hong Kong, which killed at least 13 people.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, expressed sympathy to the families of the victims and those affected by the disaster. He urged all-out efforts to extinguish the fire and minimize casualties and losses.
In the wake of the fire, Xi attached great importance to the accident and immediately sought updates on the rescue efforts and casualties.
Xi instructed the director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to convey his condolences and sympathies to HKSAR Chief Executive John Lee.
He required the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the CPC Central Committee and the liaison office to support the HKSAR government in making all-out efforts to put out the fire, do everything possible in search and rescue, treat the injured, and comfort the victims' families.
(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Du Mingming)
China releases white paper on arms control in new era
(Xinhua) 10:19, November 27, 2025
BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council Information Office on Thursday released a white paper titled "China's Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation in the New Era."
The white paper said that China plays a constructive role in international arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation, and actively offers its initiatives and solutions.
China has been and will always be a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order, it said.
The white paper was released to comprehensively present China's policies and practices on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation, and its position on security governance in emerging fields such as outer space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence.
It was also to restate China's commitment to safeguarding world peace and security, and to call on countries around the world to work together for international arms control.
The white paper noted that China is committed to upholding the international arms control regime with the United Nations (UN) at its core. It works to promote global governance in arms control, supports all efforts to build a world of lasting peace and common security, and serves as a key promoter of international arms control.
It also noted that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has actively safeguarded the authority and effectiveness of the international arms control regime, played a constructive role in multilateral arms control in the nuclear, biological, chemical and other fields, and conscientiously performed its duties prescribed by international arms control treaties, making its due contribution to international arms control.
Emerging fields such as outer space, cyberspace, and AI represent new frontiers for human development. They create a new focus of strategic security, and new territories of global governance, the white paper pointed out.
China proposes that with the universal participation of all countries, the UN should play a pivotal role in fostering a global governance framework and standards for emerging fields based on broad consensus, while increasing the representation and voice of developing countries, it added.
The white paper stressed that China continues to build its domestic nonproliferation capacity, actively participating in the international nonproliferation process, promoting international cooperation on peaceful uses of science and technology, and facilitating the improvement of global nonproliferation governance.
Chinese modernization follows the path of peaceful development, and China's growth contributes to the growth of the world's peaceful forces. China stands ready to work with all peace-loving countries to build an equal and orderly multipolar world and promote universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. It will consolidate and develop the UN-centered international arms control regime, work with all parties to build a community with a shared future for humanity, and create a brighter future for all, according to the white paper.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said the atmosphere of the phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday was "positive, friendly, and constructive."
At a regular press briefing on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed that the U.S. side had initiated the call. She noted that since the start of President Trump's second term, the two leaders have maintained frequent communication.
Mao said the two heads of state exchanged views on issues of mutual concern, stressing that such communication is vital for the stable development of ChinaU.S. relations.
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