22nd January.
Ir seems to most of us a simple ing to say that the Emperor is the {rightful ruler of China, that the Empress Dowager has usurped the power which she has wielded so dis-estrously, and that she ought to be made to retire and let the Emperor take his proper position as sole ruler ofthe Empire. But there is a serious complication in the Palace which is not generally understood. Everyone who knows anything about China knows that no Chinaman can hope to rest happily in his grave, unless he has a son, actual or adopt: ed, to perform the annual worship at his tomb and supply him with the comforts and conveniences which he requires in the world of shadows to which he has gone. When the last Emperor Tung Chih died leaving no heir, his wife soon following him to the tomb, the two Empress Dowagers, his own mother the present Empress Dowager, and the first wife of the former Emperor Hsien Feng, who constituted themselves the Joint Regents of the Empire, should properly have selected a prince standing to'Tung Chih in the position nephew, who might have been adopted as Tung Chih's son and performed the duties which a son owes to a deceased father. It was under all circumstances the duty of the Regents to select a prince of a generation later than that of Tung Chih, The present Empress Dowager, and she as having the stronger will virtually concentrated all the power in her own hands, selected a son of her brother-in-law Prince Chun, and that son was made Emperor under the title of Kuang Hsii; but the difienlty remained that he was the first cousin of, and therefore of the same generation as, the deceased Emperor Lung Chih. Very strong objections were made at_the time to the choice of Prince Chun's son, by which the Emperor Tung Chih was deprived asuri whose ministrations should comfort his departed spirit; and a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.