(1) We received this morning a special edict from H.I.M. the Empress-Dowager Taii-hsi-tuan-yi-k'ang-yi, ete., ete., which we hasten to confirm. It is to the following effect:—The Princess Fu Chin, 2nd Order, the Consort of the late Prince Fu Chin, has presented to us (the Empress-Dowager) a memorial complaining of the headstrong, wilful, and unt ial conduct of Prince Tsai Shu, 3rd Order (Beileh), her eldest son and the heir to his father's estate. As a matter of fact he frequently showed contempt of his mother's efforts to restrain his headstrong conduct and of late has wilfully shown disrespect in his daily bearing towards his widowed mother. For instance, the 10th instant was the birthday anniversary of the Princess Fa Chin. Instead of showing due filial piety by evincing an interest in or directing the proposed festivities to be beld in honour of the occasion, Prince Tsai Shu pretended to fall ill the day before and asked to be' excused from participating in them, thereby evading certain important ceremonies which as the eldest son and head of the house he should have tried by every means in his power to perform. Then, to crown all, when our(theEmpress-Dowager's) birthday presents to his mother arrived at the Fa Chin Palace, Prince Tsai Sku made no attempt to appear and show his loyalty and re"pect for us, as well as thankfulness for this mark of Imperial bounty tchis mother, by reverentially kneeling at the grand entrance of his Palace while the Imperial gifs were being borne within, Furthermore, neither did he worship' at the tablets of ihis ancestors nor pay congratulatory obeisance before the image of his mother, which he should have done on such an occasion, even if he had been considerably more ill than he pretended 10 be. Ina word, this audacity, this contempt for the first principles of filial piety and -loyal devotion to his parent bas.really gone beyond bounds, and if we do not made a most severe example of the culprit we cannot expect. to see dutiful and loyal conduct in others, Our (the Emperor's) sentence, therefore, is that Tsai Shu be forthwith stripped of his Princely title and handed over to the Imperial Clan Court for the administration of eighty blows of the broad-bladed bamboo. He is then to be immured for ever within the four walls of an empty room. We hereby depute the carrying out of our sentence to Shih Tu, Prince of Li, Ast Order, who is the senior member of the Imperial Clan, and he is to see that the sentence be wholly carried out, As for the successor of Tsai Shu, we hereby. leave the Princess Fu Chin herself to select the next heir to the late Prince Fu Chin and his estates, (2) T's Mu, Viceroy of Shan-Kan, reports that K*uei Shun, Imperial Resident at Hsining, having received' news of the death of one of his parents, asks permission to retire into mourning, and that someone be para to succeed him. K'uei Shun is hereby given 100 days' leave of absence to enable him to return to his Banner Reservation and assume the usual mourning, Lien K'uei is appointed Imperial Resident pro tem. during K'uei Shun's absence. The Board concerned is to take note.
Note.—The period of mourning for a parent amongst the Manchus is 100 days for the Chinese it is 27 months. During these periods no mourner is allowed to hold substantive office which possesses an official seal—these seals whether gold, silver, copper, or wood are all made and engraved at the Board of Rites in Peking. Officials who have been discovered to have purposely delayed or omitted reporting to their superior officers the deaths of their parents, in order to get as much money as they can before retiring into enforced mourning, have not only lost their rank and posts entirely, but have oven been banished to work a3 convicts on the post-roads in Manchuria, Mongolia, or Chinese Turkestan to atone for this greatest of social crimes in Chinese estimation.—Translator, (8) E-k'6-tang-a, Tartar General of Fengtien, Manchuria, denounces the carelessness amounting to crime of a certain T'ang Yii-tsing, First Captain of the left battalion of the Rear Division of the Army of Fengtien. Tt appears that one Wang Chao-kuei, an expectant chihsien, or district magistrate of Shansi, was returning from Shansi to his native city of Liaoyang, and was sailing up the Liao river accompanied by his family in three boats. Not many miles from Liaoyany some pirates had attacked the mandarin's boats and after looting them had just rowed off, when the above-named Captain and a squadron of cavalry, whose duty it is to patrol the river for pirates, rode up along the river banks attracted by the noise on the river. Without making the least investigation as to who were the pirates and which were the plundered boats, the said Captain at once gave the order to his men to fire into the latter, probably tyking them to be rates. The above-named district Magistrate fell at the first volley, while the rex, pirates escaped This is.. most strange, and must be strictly enquired into.' Let
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.