Dee. 20.
Tux extremely circumstantial and dramatic account of the murder of Toan Fang would seem to leave but little room for doubt as to the authenticity of the news, which indeed reaches us from two or three different sources. It is a sorry end for a man who, as he was unquestionably of greater ability than the majority of his colleagues, was also, called to play a greater part than most upon the stage of official Chins. Just seven months ago Tuan Fang was summoned from that retirement into which two years before he had been #o inexplicably driven for some apparently trivial offence, in order that he might bring peace into disordered Szechuaa, in reality, events have proved, to be involved in the downfall of his Imperial masters. That he should have obeyed the summons was remarkable in many ways. If the task before him was one that called for extreme skill in management, it was none the less in appearance considerably inferior to posts that he had held before and had the right to expect: and it was a task of infinite danger, before which even a man of the most iron nerve might not have been blamed for
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.