THE RACE WAS OVER.
The Chinese Lieutenant who commanded the torpedo-boat evidently concluded not to be a disturbing element to the fleet at anchor; the course was renewed, and, rounding the bluff, an attempt was made to reach the shore by ramming the ice. The floe was found to be too heavy for the light craft, so, skirting the edge of the ice, the boat stranded in shoal water; the occupants made a hurried exit and took to the woods. The second boat likewise tried the ice, but finding that no impression could be made thereon, sought to escape, as its principal had done, by skirting the pack until shoal water could be reached. But there was no time; the Yoshino was too close, and that powerful vessel ploughed through the ice at a tremendous rate of speed. When the nearest point to the runaway was reached, we heard the ugly quick bark of the Yoshino's three-pounders, and the race was over. With a mighty roar the safety-valves of the big cruiser were lifted, and for security the vessel headed seaward. There was no time to lower boats; the water was intensely cold, and it was never learned that any of the crew of the riddled boat escaped. The guns of the Yoshino sang the only requiem over the watery graves of those that went down with their ship.
The stranded boat was hauled off the next day by boats from the Tachachiho, and was taken to the Japanese navy-yard at Yekesuka. Several months later this trophy of the war was shown to the writer by a Japanese naval officer, the latter little suspecting that his visitor had witnessed the interesting episode of its capture on that eventful winter's morning in the Yellow Sea.
The great development of various kinds of athletics within recent years has been to the detriment of certain kinds of sport that men and boys ten years ago or more used to devote more time to. Nowadays there are so many who wish to go into athletics that the popular games are those in which the greatest number of contestants may take part. It is probably for this reason that we see so much attention given to track athletics, even as a winter in-door sport, to the subordination of almost all other games.
FIG. 1.—TRYING FOR A HOLD.