Taw mon could write a more strange account of the experience that has fallen to their lot than Chung How, the Chinese Ambassador at St. Petersburg. Twice within less than ton years has he seen. the-foundations of: aosiety. upset in a European country and twice, sent to represent the weakness, or the crimea of his own people, has lip arrived to find the country to which he was accredited in the throes ofirevolution. It may be remembered that on his first mission to arope, on his arrival in France he found the Govarnmont to which he had been accredited upset and the capital be-Joaguered by a stranger. Before commencing the business in hand, he had to await the entry of the hostile troops into Paris, and to be a spectator of the insane deeds of the Commune. From a window in the Champs Elysees ho, beheld the evacuation of the city by the German troops and the establish. mont: of a settled Government; and it waa, not till all this had occurred that the business for which he had been sent to Europe could be accomplished, and the position of China with the Government of France, rodely strained by the, massacre of Tientsin, could be considered as again established on a friendly footing. It. was in consequence of, the experience gained during his sojourn in France, that Chung How was, accend time selected to fill an important, post in Europe. This time tha: business needed was of a more delicate nature than the first. He had to undertake to convince a nation, not overscrupulous when questions of territory concerned, that it was withholding district, of right belonging to China, after the period for its rendition had d,_He.had to do this in a manner ea, circumspect, that while his action would not be taken s conveying a threat, to the cabinet at. St. Petersburg, it, was yet, to be firm and determined. ad Aominem, as to the justness of his plea, he was to season it with suggestions of the advisability in Russia' own interest of ita yielding. The conduct and attitude of Great Britain were doubtless brought into play, and the hope of a firm alliance of the two northern powers in Asia held out asa bait. It was easy to see that from some unknown cause the Chinese Minister was making more headway than might have been expected when he first started. Coupled with the evidently crippled state of Russian finance after the Tarkish war, and the strange manner in which the late Ameer of Afghanistan had been left to his fate, notwithstanding the fine entice ing promises of the Governor of Siberia, there seemed to be a screw loose somewhere. Few expected that the Chinese Ambassador would be listened to, yet listened to he evidently was; and the question of retiring from Ili was taken into serious consideration. An announcement that Russia had definitely refused to withdraw was promptly contradicted, and an attitude but little practised at the Court of the Czar was being assumed. Few or none thought that Russia was prepared to abandon its traditional policy of annexation, and the feeling that it bad already gone too far for its own stability had not yet dawned on its statesmon, The events of the last fow weeks have, however, thrown a strange light on the condition of affairs. However the Russian Government desires to conceal it, the revolution, long looked for, has already commenced, and Chung How has been the witness of the beginning of the movement. While it must be admitted that the attempt on the life of the Czar was unwise, in that it excited the sympathies of lovers of order, it was to be hoped, a3 the only possible solution of the condition into which affairs bad fallen, that the misgovernment of the Tcbian should be checked. The Czars, the time of Peter the Great to be absolute masters, had found out that without delegating their absolute government to others, the fiction could not be kept up; and so it happened that the Czar Alexander fell 8 victim to the policy of his House, and he himself became but a puppet in the hands of the faction his predecessors had set up. Perhaps of all his subjects the Czar was the least independent, and the magnificent show of imperialism was but the badge of a despotism more galling to the Emperor than to the meanest of his people. He had essayed to measure his strength with the gigantic organisation which the policy of his ancestors bad raised up, and in the emancipation of the serfs had been partially successful. He was not long in discovering how vain was the straggle; and even before the commencement of the war with Tarkey, he bad found out of how little moment were the wishes of an autocrat. By the force of circumstances he was compelled to yield up his own individuality, and has lived long enough to find himself estranged from his family and little belter than @ prisoner in his own palace. Whatever be the immediate result, the revolution has begun. Slight circumstances may modify the form it will finally adopt, but it does not need the gift of prophecy to predict that, whatever may happen, the Russia of the fature will not be the Russia of the past. As an Empire it may become more formidable to the peace of its neighbours, or it may collapse as an overblown bubble; but the old relations of Czar and People have been rudely severed, never more to recover their ancient course. The strange part of the story is that the two greatest movements of the last half century have been witnessed by the one man who, by curious coincidence, has been sent from the utmost limits of the civilised world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.