24th Sept.
Paw fears that we expressed last week that the Emperor of China was going too fast for his own safety, fears which were felt strongly by friends of the reform movement at Peking, have been promptly realised, and at the present moment China, as far as we know, has no Emperor. here are rumours, many and wide-spread, that he hus been poisoned; at any rate, we have it under his own hand that he is deposed. 'I'he decree issued on the 22nd, which we printed yesterday morning, informs China that the Empress-Dowager has resumed the reins of government, and the Emperor, at the head of all the high officials, was to kotow to her the Throne Hall yesterday morning. he Emprese-Dowager is emulating her great predecessor the Empress Wu sch-tien of the long dyinsty, who ruled China for over forty years, keeping the nominal Emperor in a state of virtual confinement, and being only deposed by a military conspiracy in A.D, 705 when she was over eighty years old.
ry now told is that the Emperor's "illness" was due to medicine administered to him by " eunuch, who was caught and confessed that Kang Yii-wei hind suborned him to poison the Emperor, The reforms that the Emperot has been decreasing so lavishly of late are believed to have been suggested by Kang Yii-wei, who has therefore made a great number of enemies in Peking; the idea that he should want to poison his Imperial Master is preposterous. he enemies of the Emperor are anxious undoubtedly to get rid of Kang Yii-wei, and the charge now made against him is, it would seem, a pretext to justify his immediate decapitation when he is caught. Every steamer from the North is being carefully searched by Chinese detectives who are anxious to find him and gain the reward that has been offered by the Taotai for his arrest; but itis to be hoped that he will come down in an English steamer, and that her captain will not allow him to be taken away from the protection of the British flag. Tt would be a Insting disgrace if the Modern Sage were to be taken, by his enemies to certain death from an English steamer, There is, happily, reason to believe that he is still in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.