Aug. 20 Few more tragic incidents have occurred in the course of the establishment of the new Government in China than the sudden execution of two generals the Republican Army. Within a few months of the triumphant success of the patriotic rising two of its leaders, men of meritorious service by the Vice-President's own admission, have been shot down by order of the Provisional President whose authority they had helped to establish, and have died with curses on their lips against the Republic which had been the object of their aspirations. The story of their arrest and the reasons given for it by the autho-rilles is sufficiently clear from our Peking—_ correspondent's telegram and the announcement nude by the Captain of the Peking Gendarmerie of which we published a translation yesterday. On the 13th instant Vice-President Li Yuan-hung tele-apiied to President Yuan, advising the immediate execution of Chang Cheng-wu and Fang Wei, who were then in Peking. Chang, he stated, was the moving spirit of the Officers' Union, am organization of which little hitherto been heard, and in this position was mainly responsible for "'the two attempts at rebellion at Wuchang," which thus appear to have been considerably more serious than they were believed to be at the time. Over Chang's connexion with political parties the Vice-President is discreetly mysterious, iginal from
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.