Consul Playfair in his standard gaze-teer or list of Chinese place names gives "Peiching or Peking" as the transhteration. The text books and dictionaries of Giles, Morrison, Bullock, Legge and Wade all give At the meet of the international at Hamburg last September Miss Scidmore passed a paper to the leading Chinese scholars asking how the capital of north China should be spelled in English publications, and all those learned ones wrote "Peking. Among them were Dr. H. A. Gile: fessor of Chinese at Cambridge, England Dr. F. Birth, professor of Chinese at Columbia University, New York; M. Henri Cordier of the #rench Academy and Collige de France, Paris; Arthur Diosy of London, Dr. 0. Francke of Dresden and others.: 2 Prof. "Robert K. Douglas, Chinese curator of the British Museum and professor of Chinese at King's College, London, wrote to Miss Scidmore: "I quite agree with you that Peking ought to be spelt with "final 'g.' The *g' is plainly sounded, and the whole word 30 pronounced has the meaning northern capital. Pekin has no significance and is altogether meaningless in this connec tion."
'Special Commissioner Rockhill would not the 'g' to be dropped from his li government printing of his official report, and sent Miss Scidmore a long letter which expressed his mind not only about "Peking," but as to other decisions of the board. "There can be no doubt in the mind of any person who has heard the name pronounced by a Chinaman—save a Cantonese—that it should be written Peking,'" wrote Mr. Rockhill. The board is extraordinarily careful to give a correct transcription to some native sounds. Thus it writes Singan Fu, Habana and Seoul. It is a pity the same care was not exercised throughout its work," and Mr. Rockhill cited a long list. of contradictory and inconsistent' spelling adopted by the board.
Mr. F. D. Cheshire, an eminent sinologue, for any years Chinese secretary of the United States legation in Peking, was equally positive. "Permit me," he wrote, "to say, most emphatically that the official and only recognised form I know is Peking. In the original text (Chinese) the 'g' is distinctly "pronowneed—in. the northern mandarin or oficial language Peiching, and the southern mandarin, Peking. The latter form was no doubt originally used by the sinologues as approaching nearest to an adequate representation of the spoken sound in the official dialect. most extensively known; namely, the southern mandarin. Pekin is the Cantonese promuneiation, and in no wise official, any more than the Swatow, Amoy or Foochow pronunciation would' be regarded as official. No Chinese scholar would in my opinion spell the name for the capital of China without the 'g."
S.|The "G" Wins.
Miss Scidmore's communication was sent to the board previous to its regular meeting in December. Throughout the winter the board considered the evidence for "Peking." It appears that there was none for "Pekin." The board finally brought the subject to a vote and, reversing its decision of February, 1897, puts the government in line with the world's Dest usage again. The War Department is now somewhat embarrased by this, since its connection with the expedition to China involved a mass of printed reports and maps, in which the most_imporcant names Were misspelled, according to the latest decision. The board was organised in 1890 to secure uniform usage in regard. to geographic names and orthography throughout the executive departments of the government, and all "unsettled questions" were to be referred to it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.