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The National Geographic Magazine 



junior member in the Board of Rites, 

 drew up a memorial proposing numer- 

 ous changes in the administration of the 

 government. His chiefs, all old men, 

 and mostly Tatars, refused to transmit 

 the document to the throne. The Km- 

 peror, on learning that they had dared to 

 intervene between him and his officials, 

 flew into a towering rage, stripped them 

 of their official honors, and threatened to 

 dismiss them from the public service. 



Those old men, smarting under the 

 disgrace, posted away to the country 

 palace and threw themselves at the feet 

 of the Kmpress Dowager, begging her 

 to come out of her retirement and save 

 the Empire from the hands of a 3^oung 

 man who was driving the chariot of state 

 so furiouslj^ that there was danger of his 

 setting the world on fire. She had been 

 regent twice before, but she had never 

 retired altogether from the world of pol- 

 itics. With her neither card parties nor 

 novels nor theatrical shows could com- 

 pete in interest with the political chess- 

 board; in all moves on that board her 

 fingers had been more or less concerned. 

 Eagerly did she embrace the invitation, 

 and as with a bolt out of the blue heavens 

 she struck down the impetuous j'outh, 

 compelling him to sign a paper begging 

 her to teach him how to govern. By 

 way of justifying her action, she issued 

 an edict, in which, among other things, 

 she said that her subjects must not sup- 

 pose that she was opposed to rational 

 progress. It does not follow, she said, 

 that we should stop eating because we 

 have been choked. She meant to sa}^ 

 that her adopted son had crammed his 

 reforms down the throats of his people 

 too fast for their digestion. She in- 

 tended to administer them with judicious 

 moderation, in such quantity and degree 

 as would make them easier of assimila- 

 tion. 



Well had it been for her and her dy- 

 nasty had she adhered to this principle; 

 on the contrary, throwing herself into 

 the hands of a reactionary part}^ instead 



of progress she entered upon an anti- 

 foreign reaction in which a disastrous 

 smash-up became inevitable. She began 

 by canceling all the educational and 

 other administrative reforms inaugu- 

 rated by the young Kmperor. 



The only one of the institutions estab- 

 lished by him which she permitted to 

 remain was the new university. That 

 institution she no doubt spared because 

 it had been favored or, as one might 

 say, founded by lyi Hung Chang, who, 

 by the way, though he still continues to 

 be her faithful servant, has behind him 

 a record of imperishable glory as the 

 foremost patron of the new education in 

 the Chinese Empire. It was he who rec- 

 ommended me for the presidency of the 

 university, which I may describe as at 

 present in a state of suspended animation, 

 the Russians having seized on the build- 

 ings for soldiers' barracks and threatened 

 to confiscate its funds, which were depos- 

 ited in Russian banks. 



THE GROWTH OF THE ANTI-FOREIGN 

 FEELING IN CHINA. 



A little before the coup d' etat Germany 

 had seized a seaport by way of reprisals 

 for the murder of two of her missionaries 

 in the south of Shantung. Russia de- 

 manded the cession of Port Arthur as an 

 offset. England insisted on having Wei 

 Hai Wei, on the opposite side of the gulf, 

 in order to keep watch on the movements 

 of her northern rival. France, in the far 

 south, protested against being left out in 

 the cold, for was she not as great a power 

 as any of them ? She demanded that 

 the equilibrium of the political balance 

 should be maintained b}^ giving her the 

 Bay of Kwang chau, not far from the 

 borders of her Anamite Empire. The 

 Empress, who by this time had become 

 Regent for the third time, was irritated 

 beyond endurance, and while she feigned 

 to yield to these demands rather than to 

 make war without due preparation, she 

 made it known to her people that if any 



