To the Editor of the "Norta-Cuina Day News."
Srr,—Will you kindly afford we and the public, generally, correct information upon the following point?
I have a very strong impression that in the old columns of your own paper there exist definite records that the Germans offered to restore those "Boxer Loot, As- 1 tronomical Instruments" to the Chinese Government some few years after they had been exhibited at Potsdam, but that the Chinese Government coldly declined the offer. Is not this on record?
Much sympathy has been wasted over these old curios which were believed to embody original Chinese ideas. The correct statement of the facts is that practically all of those interesting bronze instruments were not Chinese, in the true sense of the word, at all. Those instrunients were monuments of patient supervision of Chinese workmen by French Jesuit priests.
ers were actual presents, modelled with Dragon frames, etc., to the Chinese Court either from the French King Louis, or the Jesuits themselves. \It is not improbable that this point influenced the Germans in selecting their objects. Of course tradition has it that Kublai Khan established the Observatory, cire. A.D. 0, but verification will prove that the "loot" so written about consists of the beautiful bronzes due to Jesuits and French Court. That some such offer of restitution was made at some time is morally certain as it has been diplomatically contended that the Chinese Government made a present of thei to their "present owners." T am, etc., Shanghai, Jan. 93.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.