A Corean Legation will be a new thing for Peking. The former tribute-bearers will now come as Envoys Extraordinary, to be received by the Chinese Emperor with the same honours as the Ministers of Great Britain or Russia The Dowager's Return.
For the Empress Dowager to be actually en her way to Peking, and for preparations to be made for an honourable and even exultant reception, is in many respects most. striking arent. She fled in the midst of danger; she returns in perfect. safety, both situations being due to the forces of the Allies.
There is a certain unreality, as of a dream, in all the strange panorama. The Empress Dowager may count herself a lucky woman. She has not in any respect met her deserts. The wheel of Fortune is ever bringing her to the top. Others pass away, some in a good old age, and others by shameful and unmerited death, but she remains, the possessor of power, the unmatched plotter. She herself could hardly have thought a year or more ago that all things would turn out for her so well. She must be a surprise even to herself.
What should have been and what is.
When the Allied armies came marching into Peking, in unchallenged possession of the nation's capital and all the highway te the sea, the natural supposition in the minds of many was that the Chinese, who had seen the folly of the Imperial antagonism to the whole world, would disown such a sovereignty, and of themselves join lin harmony the family of enlightened nations. But not so. The Chinese, whether of the people or the mandarinate, evinced a high degree of non-rerolutionism, as well as their usual fatalistic resignation, until now the eighteen provinces, as much 38 beyond the wall," do obeisance to the Woman Ruler of the Empire. Even. the most ardent supporters of the rights of the Emperor have remained marvelously quiet, much so that the Emperor once again seems bereft of any true friend. The mandarins who set at nought the Imperial command, known to have emanated from the Empress Dowager rather than the Emperor, have argued for the innocency and dignity of the Dowager, and have supplied her with troops for her defence, and silver, silks, and every costly gift for ber pleasure.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.