"All China is in a chaotic state ind in every other province you will find political leaders, either radicals or conservatives, who delight in making trouble," be ays. "No, I do not like trouble. I thoroughly enjoy placidity and I'm going to have it." Then he gurgles from the depths of a very massive chest and comes as near winking as a Tuchun may.
"You probably hear all sorts of foolish yarns about me in both Peking and Canton," he suggests. "Well, very few people trouble to learn the truth about Fukien. I hope you will get all the infor-motion you can while you are here and correct some of the false impressions which outsiders have of me. I'm sure that you will find that the bandits are neither so numerous nor so_ active as they are said to be. You will also find that there is much less opium grown or sold than anyone outside Fukien would believe, and you also learn that we are not so heavily in debt to foreigners as has been reported.' And this is about all that Li Tuchun will say of politics.
His claims for a better character than he now enjoys in the north are not without some foundation, according to foreigners who know something of conditions in the province, but he is of course a Tuchun ruling his Tuchunate along conventional fides, and when one comes to an_ estimate of his character or of his official worth it is much more charitable to confine one's self to the Governor's amiable personality.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.