A Peking dispatch states owing to a recent joint memorial presented by Viceroys Chang Chih-tung, and Yuan Shih-kai strongly Teoommending the immediate issue of an Imperial edict abolishing for ever the old style of examinations for the Chiijén (Master of Arts) and Chinshih (Doctor) degrees, and authorising the Poking University to conduct examinations in future and confer higher literary degrees, a party of Conservative Censors have begun sending in memorials to the Throne denouncing the two Viceroys and their scheme. One Censor, P'an Ch'ing-lan, seized upon a sentence in the joint memoria} of the two Viceroys—in which it was stated that the Empire bad suffered greatly for the last two hundred years and over through the onl laws which compelled literary examinations after the old style—as showing contempt on the part of the Viceroys for the former Emperors and Imperial Ancestors of his Majesty Kuang If," declared this Censor, "his ancestors countenanced those so called evil laws," then it may be taken for granted that all the laws promulgated and countenanced by the former Emperors of the dynasty were evil." It is reported from the Palace that the Emperor and Empress Dowager were "quite moved" when they read the memorial of the Cen-~or, and that it 1s quite probable, in face also of the strong opposition to the two Viceroys' scheme evinced by the great majority of Ministers and officials at Court—showing that the Court and its ad-still as Conser-against (rue re: form=—the old regime of the triennial ex aminations will still continue and the Peking University remain a farce. Moreover it is feared that the two Vicerors have started a hornet's nest which they will find rather difficult. to suppress. Finails, there is also a report that another Censor, named Li Shuwhma, has lately denounced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as composed of "a lot of zood-for-nothings, one of whom is fit for, or knows, the duties i Perhaps, from what may be past experience, Mr. Censor Li is not so far wrong after all in his opinion of the Chinese F.0.
Marshal Ssu, or Ssu Kung-pao, as the Chinese call General Ssu Yuan-ch'un_ Provincial Commander-in-Chief of Kuangsi, who as already stated in these columns has been ordered to go up to Peking for audience, is stated in a late Northern dispatch to have owed his recall to the French Minister at Peking. The latter is credited with having told the Chinese Government that Marshal Ssu sympathises with the rebels in Kuangsi, in consequence of which the longer the Marshal re-nains in that province the longer will the rebellion continue. The Government, continues the dispatch in question, is greatly astonished, as the common entertained at Peking and by mandarindom in general in the provinces is that Marshal Suis a protege of the French, he having hitherrs always been spoken of by the French in terms of eulogy. so that this alleged denunciation of the French officials comes as a thorough surprise.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.