The sage Oseba told his audience that “Many nations among the Outeroos regarded the ‘Japs’ as an ‘inferior race,’ but if the achievements of man is the measure of the soul and the intellect, the Japs have no superiors on little Oliffa, for her recent progress pales the lustre of the world’s authentic history; but,
‘If the zenith of strife, sheds a mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before,’”
said the sage, as he tortured the immortal Thomas, the brilliancy of Japanese story may soon wane, and as, owing to lack of room, her only path to glory is through unfashionable war, the prospects are not rosy. Though that nation may, for a long time, remain flamboyant, the people may soon writhe in a lower misery than ‘pagan Japan’ ever knew.
However, should the little brown man clip the claws from the Russian bear, and send him back, lame and growling, to his northern lair, and then arouse China, and, by the skill of his wonderful capacity, organize it, Eastern Asia may remember a few thousands of the “insults” heaped upon her people during the last half-century, and conclude to test the question of “superiority” by other than industrial methods.
Of the known Monarchies of Asia, he said, the people were ignorant and impoverished, the officials were insolent and corrupt, the rulers were vicious and despotic, and the governments rotten beyond cure.
As to India, the sage Oseba spoke with sympathy. “Britain,” he said, “is the only country capable of governing an ‘inferior’ race. She has done much to rescue the country from periodic, if not from almost constant war, and famine, and despair; but the ‘people,’ the offspring of thousands of years of misrule and oppression, have reached a condition of crystallized non-progressiveness, and they must finally die out, as they cannot adjust themselves to modern conditions. Its past is sad, its future is hopeless. It will long be a country in which a few cunning bees may load themselves with golden honey, that their far away hives may be filled; but slowly and sadly that strange brown people must pass away. They have reached their ultimate. In them the oak and the steel, necessary for the contests of the future, are wanting.”
EUROPE, SOMEWHAT “DISCOVERED.”
The globe was so adjusted as to give a perfect view of the Continent of Europe, and, in interesting speech, were the countries and their peoples described.
Referring to the influence of environment, the orator explained how the comparative smallness of this continent, the fertility of the soil, the variety of plant and animal life, the mountains, and plains, and indented shore lines, with enormous stretch of water-front, together with its extensive river systems and healthful, but erratic climatic conditions, marked this as the garden and nursery for the most active, sturdy, intelligent, and emotional of all peoples on the globe.
Continental Europe covers an area of 3,500,000 square miles, and supports, in various degrees of opulence and wretchedness, some 380,000,000 people—chiefly men, women, and clergymen—with 20,000,000 men in “uniform,” who seem well seized with their own importance. These latter are very influential personages, as they are equipped with very persuasive arguments.