As will be remembered by readers of these "Notes" the Empress Dowager a short time ago issued a Decree commanding Viceroys and Governors of provinces to select bright and promising youths of respectable families to send to Europe and the United States to study " Western Learning" abroad at Government expense. It now transpires that this Decree was issued at the instance of Mrs. Conger, the wife of the United States Minister, at the first party in the Palace to which the Empress Dowager invited the wives of the Foreign Representatives and their respective suites. Mrs. Conger, it is state ed, asked the Empress Dowager why she did not send young Chinese and Manchus to study and obtain scientific professions abroad at the same time painting in vivid language the advantages. such step would bring to China. Carried away by the eloquence of the American lady the Empress Dowager promised Mrs. Conger that she would issue commands thereanent without loss of time. Two y's after, while holding a Council of her advisers, the Empress Dowager expressed her wish to order the Viceroys and Governors of provinces to send youths abroad and commanded one of the members of the Grand Council to draw up such a Decree for proclamation. To th: s all those of the Council belonging to the Conservative Party demurred and warned the Empress Dowager with gloomy countenance that in every youth who obtained a foreign education the Conservative Party was creating for itself an opponent inimical to the old regime, and it was the duty therefore of all who stood for the ancient order of things to crush all attempts to strengthen the New or Progressive Party. The Grand Councillors accordingly opposed the Empress Dowager's scheme "for reasons of policy but this her Majesty immediately put a stop to by impatiently exclaiming with a stamp of the foot, "Keep silent! I have given my promise to have it done and opposition to it is therefore useless." The Imperial Decree was accordingly issued.
The Spread of the Kuangsi Rebellion.
With reference to a paragraph which appeared a short time ago in these "Notes" that the city of Hsingyihsien, Kueichou province, near the Hunan frontiers, had fallen into the hands of an army of Kuangsi rebels who plausibly gave out in proclamations that they "only desired to Sorrow a route to Szechuan province to unite themselves to the loxers of that region," official dispatches have been received in Nanking from Kueiyang, the capital of Kueichou province, to the effect that other bodies of rebels from Kuangsi had since then entered Kueichou and were spreading thun-elves all over the province, being welcomed everywhere they appeared by malcontents. A dispatch from Changsha was also received at Nanking to the effect that a body of Kuangsi rebels had been hovering on the Hunan frontiers, whither troops had already been sent by Governor Yii Lien-san at the request of Governor Teng Hua-hsi of Kueichou, and that the news of Kuangsi rebels on the Hunan borders was beginning to create much unrest in the Hunanese cities and towns in that vicinity. It is feared that the leaders of the Kuangsi rebellion are not intending to join the Boxers of Szechuan 4:—this being merely to cover their designs—but are really intent upon joining themselves to the Kolao Huis of the Yangtze valley. If so, this will bring about a most grave situation in the Liangkiang and Hukuang provine The New Assistant Commissioner of Commerce, The local mandarins have received news from the United States that H.E. Wu Ting-fang, the new Assistant Commissioner to negotiate commercial treaties with the Foreign Powers, vice Sheng Kung-pao, retired into mourning, will leave Washington for Shanghai on or about the lith inst.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.