The new diplomatic phases of the Chinese problem have interested cartoonists, during the past month, in America as well as in Europe. The association of the United States with the European powers in military and diplomatic adventures in the heart of the ancient Asiatic empire might well inspire the pencils of our clever cartoonists to their most telling work. The two reproductions on this page are from drawings made for the Evening News of Detroit by an artist whose humor and ability speak for themselves, and another of whose cartoons relating to American politics will be found on page 413. The baggagewagon with the big trunks at the door of China indicates the purpose of the unwelcome foreign guests to spend the winter, at least. Since this cartoon was drawn, however, Uncle Sam has shown a very decided disposition to curtail his stay at Peking; and for this let us all be thankful. The smaller cartoon on this page relates to a matter about which not nearly enough has been said. At the capture of Tientsin by the allied armies, the soldiers of all nations were permitted to exercise the medieval military privilege of looting private property. By common consent, for a day or two the soldiery of the great nations of Christendom, sent to China to rescue missionaries and

uphold a higher civilization, became thieves and plunderers. Authentic descriptions of the looting of Tientsin are enough to provoke a unanimous moral indignation meeting in Sing Sing Prison. Uncle Sam had to join Europe in the march to Peking, but he will not be excusable if he stays very long in that sort of company. We believe it to be true that our soldiers took no leading part in the carnival of plunder at Tientsin.

NEW IN THE BUSINESS.

LAMARTINE said, "From the Gracchi to Mirabeau and Jefferson, the greatest friends of the people have sprung up from the ranks of the patricians."

HON. ADLAI E. STEVENSON, OF ILLINOIS. (Democratic and Populist nominee for the Vice-Presidency.) This is epigrammatic, but it is not true. The O'Conors, Garrisons, Lincolns, and Bryans have not sprung from the ranks of noble birth, but from the ranks of the people-"the plain people," as Mr. Lincoln called them. The man who aspires to be a leader of the people must know the people; must know their wants and needs; their modes of thinking and living; their aspirations and hopes; their economic and political. conditions; and he must be in honest sympathy with them. This knowledge and sympathy is not acquired; it is largely inherited-the growth of generations, inbred into the warp and woof of a generous nature. Then the product is the genius of leadership. It is for this reason the

public love to know the ancestry, the youth, the private life, and the personal characteristics of a public man.

The line between eulogy and biography is not always clearly discernible. This sketch is neither biography nor eulogy, but an attempt to give to the public an estimate of the personality and political characteristics of the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson is the son of John Turner Stevenson and Eliza Ewing. The Stevensons and the Ewings were neighbors in Ireland back in the eighteenth century. Both families were Scotch Presbyterians. The two families emigrated to America at the same time, and were again neighbors in North Carolina. Here they were called Scotch-Irish. The Presbyterianism went without saying. In 1814 the Stevensons and Ewings again emigrated from Iredell County, North Carolina, to Christian County, Kentucky, and again became neighbors. Here the subject of this sketch was born, October 23, 1835.

When he was sixteen years old, he came with his parents to Bloomington, Ill. From that day I have known him in the most intimate relations of life as a boy working in the field and in the mill; at school, at college; as a law student, as a lawyer, as a politician; as a son, brother, husband, and father; in private life and in high office; and I can say truthfully, that in all these relations, he has met and discharged their obligations bravely, faithfully, and fully.

Mr. Stevenson prepared himself for college at the Illinois Wesleyan University, then in its infancy, and completed his collegiate course at Center College, in Danville, Ky. While at this school he met the lady who afterwards became his wife, Miss Letitia Green, daughter of the president of the college. He was admitted to the bar in 1858, and commenced its practice in Woodford County, Illinois.

he held until his removal to Bloomington, in 1868. During the Woodford County decade there were great lawyers in attendance upon that bar, among whom Robert 3. Ingersoll, Judge Samuel L. Richmond, Mark Bangs, Judge John Burns, Hon. Clark Ingersoll, and Judge Thomas M. Shaw were prominent. Mr. Stevenson made lifelong friends of these men. His training there, both legal and political, was invaluable. In 1868 Mr. Stevenson formed a law partnership with the writer of this sketch, which continued until after his election as Vice-President of the United States in 1892-just a quarter of a century.

AS A LAWYER.

His law practice was extensive, both as to the number and the character of the suits tried. A country lawyer cannot select his practice. He cannot be a specialist. He must be prepared to try an ejectment suit one day, a chancery suit the next, a criminal case the next or the same day. In this rough-and-tumble law practice, at home or on the circuit, he must be familiar with all branches of the law, and prepared to try all kinds of cases. Mr. Stevenson's practice extended to the surrounding counties in central Illinois, to the United States district and circuit courts, and to the State appeliate and supreme courts. The cases tried were not always of great importance, but many of them were, and the questions involved oftentimes new and intricate. Mr. Stevenson's success at the bar was marked. As an advocate he had few equals. He knew the strong and weak points in a case intuitively, prepared his cases, and tried

them well. He was always courteous to the court and members of the bat, and had the respect and goodwill of every lawyer with or against whom he ever tried a case. Mr. Stevenson's knowledge of the law is philosophic; that is to say, he knows it as a system whose rules are founded on reason, and whose purpose is the conservation of property and personal rights. His legal education has largely inspired and colored his political convictions.

IN ILLINOIS POLITICS.

A Democrat by heredity, by disposition, by natural impulse, loyalty to his party has been a pleasure rather

than a duty. In early life the friend of Stephen A. Douglas, he canvassed the State for him in the great contest of 1860. He was an elector on the McClellan ticket in 1864. In 1874 hewas elected to Congress in a district which had hitherto given 3,000 Republican majority. this (the Forty-fourth) Congress, he served on the Committees on Territories and the District of Columbia. In 1876 he was defeated; his opponent being elected by a majority of 242, while the district gave Mr. Hayes, for President, a majority of 2,000. In 1878 he was again elected by a majority of 1,812. In his political contests he has always commanded much more than his party strength. The Republicans of McLean County have twice honored him with non-partisan receptions; and I doubt if any public man of this day has more warm personal friends in the ranks of his political opponents. This does not arise from timidity of opinion or mildness of expression. Few men have firmer political convictions, or in a greater degree the courage of them. But it is attributable, I think, rather to the fact that in all controversies the contest has risen to the high level of the question itself, while all personalities and coarseness were left in the valley below.

IN THE FIRST CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION.

Mr. Stevenson came into national prominence after his assumption of the duties of the office of first assistant postmaster general under Mr. Cleveland's first administration. To understand why any particular importance should attach to

a man holding such a position as this, we must revert to the circumstances and political conditions of the time. When Mr. Cleveland was elected in 1884, and the Democrats came into power after a political vacation of a quarter of a century, their joy knew no reasonable bounds. For almost a lifetime they had wandered in the wilderness of de

feat. They had now passed through the valley of humiliation to the moun. tain of triumph. All along the line they were singing. the song that Miriam sang. To them there was something miraculous in their deliverance. To. wards Mr. Cleveland their feelings were of mingled gratitude, love, and admiration tude, love, and admiration that were not exhausted by the sacrifices of three Presidential campaigns. To him they gave the gift of their splendid loyalty and more than Jewish faith. Then, in the very crowning of their rejoicing, came Mr. Cleveland's civil-service message, and there were whisperings that after all there was to be no fruitage to their victory; that the Republicans were to retain the offices-at least the smaller and more numerous ones; especially the post-offices, about the only "outward and visible sign" the people ever see of a federal govern

ment.

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MR. STEVENSON AT THIRTY YEARS OF AGE.

And so it came to pass, that the first assistant postmaster-general, who had the disbursement of 40,000 post-offices, became an object of the greatest anxiety. Who would he be? What could he do? Mr. Stevenson, I think, understood this feeling better than Mr. Cleveland, and realized what a political blunder it would be to disappoint the universal expectations of his party. And so, when the axe began to fall, the hearts of the Democrats went out to him until he became the heir to what was left of the gratitude, love, and faith not already given to Mr. Cleveland. The duties of this office brought him in personal contact and acquaintanceship with the public men of every State and of every Congressional district, Republicans as well as Democrats. He studied and came to know the political conditions of every State-the men who dominated their politics; the inside of the contests for supremacy; the men who could be trusted and

those who could not. Few public men know intimately so many of the political leaders of the day as Mr. Stevenson.

From the settlement of the slavery question to the present campaign, there have been no questions agitating the American people involving a sentiment appealing to the nation's conscience. Politics has been along the lines of economic questions. On these questions, Mr. Stevenson has usually been in accord with the position taken by his party.

Believing that a tariff for protection" is class legislation of the worst sort that it is in the interest of the few at the expense of the many; that it is unequal and unconstitutional legislation; that its tendency is to enrich the few and impoverish the many; that it makes possible gigantic monopolies and trusts, he has antagonized the doctrine at all times. Believing there was safety in economy, he has always advocated an economic expenditure of the people's money. Believing that submission even to wrong was better than civil war, he voted for and advocated, as a member of Congress, the law creating the electoral commission to determine the dangerous question of the Presidential succession in 1877.

POSITION ON THE SILVER QUESTION.

Mr. Stevenson is a bimetallist. He believes that gold and silver should both be used as cir