Tan, our-ex-Governor, the father of Tan Nothing but sympathy is felt for poor old
Tze-tung who was beheaded in Peking. It is said that for a long time the news of his son's death was kept from him and was finally told him by Chang Chih-tung himself, when the latter went on board his ship to bid him farewell on his departure from Wuchang. Another story is that Tan had intended to go as far as Nanking on his way to Peking, when ordered by the Emperor to give up his post, and there beg the Nanking Viceroy to petition the Emperor to excuse his going to the capital, but that upon news of the recent trouble he begged Chang Chih-tung instead to make his excuses.
We heard to-day story, which may be true, that some time ago when Tan went to the capital to seo the Emperor to try to get remotion to the office of Viceroy, he was opt kneeling for some two hours and when ordered to rise his limbs had lost their strength and he had to be assisted by some of the courtiers standing there. The Emperor not unkindly told the old man that his days of work were done. A friend of Tan's spoke a good word for him and said that though his body was feeble and his mind was still active and healthy, but the Emperor bade the old man go back to Wuchang—at any rate for the present.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.