Apr. 4. nar there is a tendency China towards the restoration of the monarchy the reports of sporadic movements in this direction given in our columns from time to time abundantly prove. How strong the movement may be and what chance it has of success, are questions that people answer differently, perhaps, according to their personal predilection for one form of government or for another, The Chinese annals record the beginning of the monarchy with Hwang Ti, B.C. 2637. He was probably a mythical personage, but the two following kings Yao and Shun had a legendary existence. They were tribal rulers, chosen because they were accounted the ablest men to guide the nation in troublous times. Vu, the success sor of Shun, made the title hereditary and this is the only blot the Chinese historian finds on his escutcheon; that he made the kingdom ''a family possession.' And so for four and a half millenniums a king ruled over China until, in our own day, the last of the Manchus fell before the blast of popular enthusiasm that ushered in the republic in 1911. A tradition so ancient and so honoured is not eradicated in a decade. There persists, therefore, amongst the people a certain devation to the idea of kingship which might be taken advantage of by a streng man and turned ta his own advantage did such a man exist in this distracted country.
Telegrams from Szechuan tell us that a certain robber has raised his standard there and proclaimed himself a king with the dynastic title Liwo Hsing. "Flourish in peace."" Not a few Chinese dynasties have been founded by men who began life as banditti.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.