Caixa is @ very wonderful country, if we are to believe the Peking Gazettes.
In fact it enjoys, on the same authority, quite 2 monopoly of celestial powers. The only wonder is that, enjoying this wonderful monopoly, it yet continues to get so persistently stuck in the mud. Not only are the super-nataral powers continually lending their aid to gob the empire out of its messes, but the question of the manner in which they shall be rewarded is a matter of State policy. The Emperor is, we are aware, all powerful on earth, and not only able to command such feeble States as England, France, or the United States, but he has lately shown his prowess in utterly demolishing the Mikado of Japan, His prowess does not, however, end there, The Peking Gazette assures us, and the Peking Gazette never errs, that the all-powerful spirits of the unseen world equally wait on his behests. Does he desire the grain junks to come safely to Tientsin, he has only to bribe the Tienhow by the offer of an extra title or two, and the mighty Queen of Heaven at once sets herself to the task of preserving the junks, and with them one of China's worst curses—the grain tribute. Does the Peiho overflow its banks, the Emperor can stop it by canonising two wretched little snakes or, as we learn from the Gazette of the 7th December, does the Yellow River' threaten to inundate the country, the Mandarins have only to carry out the image of the defunct Li Yii-mei, and to promise to ask His Majesty to confer a reward on his spirit, when suddenly the thing is done, and the water goss down, The proofs of this power of the Emperor are so numerous and 60 specific, that we can only wonder that the spiritualists of Shanghai have not applied to the Throne to get rid of a certain very officious and very vulgar. minded ghost said to haunt their seances, Indeed, we may go further, and express our astonishment, seeing that the spirits who influence these matters are so very easily cajoled into giving their assistance, that the Emperor should not arrange such a liberal system of rewards that the Empire might be governed, the taxes raised, and content and good order established, by some such ready system. People in Kiangsu are notonously displeased that their trade should ba impeded by the present exorbitant rate of taxation, Suppose the Emperor was to confer additional honours on T'ai-peh, call him an Im. perial Highness, or something of the sort, and give the poor old spirit the smoke of some yellow rags to clothe himself withal, would it not be signally certain that the promised reward would be as effective as in the case of the Governor of Shantung and the spirit of Li Yi-mei? Surely we are entitled to reason these things out to their legitimate conclusions. Why should not Tai-peh (we only adduce his name for an example, as having borne a respectable character, and as having founded the state of Woo—say Kiangnan) be as easily caught
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.