In Japan one also hears a beautiful Texend of one of the early empresses of Japan, "Empress Komyo, who was so. charitable and kind "that she washed and dressed the wound of a thousand of Ther suffering subjects, noticing that while she washed the thousandth one. that it was a leper, But this did not stop her, She continued and When finished, to "her surprise, the leper beggar' changed into an angelic being and soaring up heaven said: "Like me you shall be, for in me, this leper, you have cated for your Lord.'
Within a few days your trip takes you to China, a land where legend bounds. Some speak of leprosy. 'One cannot understand all the Con: fucian ethics until one has seen Con fucius' attitude toward his pupil and until you hear him say to his leprosy~ stricken student: "Such a man and sch a disease! to-day their faithfulness even to death immortalized in stone, A well-planned Oriental trip is not complete without a trip. to. the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. $0 the story is told, the persecution broke out against the Christians in Japan many. of the Spanish monks returned {o the Philippines. Some of them seemed to have had leper care on their mind for a legend says that a large number of lepers were sent by Japanese per ship to Manila as a present to the friar-missionaries.
An Early Leprosarium True to their Christian idealism, the friars accepted the challenge and built a leprosarium which is still shown to visitors, "In -1765, the tremendous walls of the San Lazaro Hospital were built, 'These walls were apparently built to. withstand mould and rust and the heavy' bars seem to indicate that neither thieves from without should break through and steal, nor lepers from within escape and infect the population, The builders apparently recognized right well that the disease ootid not eradicated and hence built an Institue tion that could withstand time, and there it is to-day—a home for lepers!
Do not think that leprosy relies are only found in the Orient, your vessel passes through the Red and Mediterranean Seas and one visits European cities, one Tecognizes that the disease has put its mark on every nation, In Europe are still found the Femains of medical leprosaria, all are prisonlike with huge gates. that open f0""recelva" but "sem dismiss patients, England shows you to-day old churches with "leper squints" or mall places built in the walls where Jeprous patients could listen' to the service without entering to disturb the peace of others, In the National Museum in Amster= dam is a wonderful painting Adriaan Van Nicuwland portraying a leper procession which took place in the streets of Amsterdam as late as 1604. An old Dutch legend tells that people believed that food berged from vell people would be beneficial the cure of leprosy—henee one day each year lepers were allowed to ber, upon the streets of Amsterdam and this attraction drew more people on the streets than a visit of the king.
No Oriental traveler can afford to pass by the beautiful ruins of Angkor, in Cambodia, "AN that is left of the Khymos, the people of Cambodia, left to us in their stone ruins and one chapter of this history deal with the faithfulness of the two wives of one of the Kings of Cambodia, There among many old and still wonderful ruins one finds "the Leper King," with his two wives, one at each side, trid chiselled in stone one reads how the king become leprous and had to eave his kingdom. So faithful and true remained his two wives to him that they went with him in exile, and Great War, and stil! more when China Joined in 1917. The Germ: and Austrian diplomatic represen tives then withdrew and their Legations were taken over by the Dutch, A further breach in the Legation front was made a few years later by the Soviet surrender of all extraterritorial rights.
In the decade following the death of Yuan Shih-kal in 1916 when China was torn by constant civil wars the influence of the Legations was at ils lowest ebb. The last Interest they had in common was surrendered the Tariff Conference held in Peking 1925, when, contrary to the original instructions of the foreign governments complete tariff autonomy was granted to China, From then each Legation dealt entirely separate ly in all questions with the Chinese government. The Chinese, with considerable lack of foresight, hailed this dispersal and complete break: down of a common Legation front as a rear diplomatic victory and the periatisn, C. T. Wang, the throwing-off of the shackles of im-
Chinese Foreign Minisier responsible for this policy, was acclaimed by his delighted countrymen as "Treaty Wang." In the event, however, it was to prove itself a fatal mistake that was to bring China under a domination of quite'a different and very much more formidable kind.
After the capture of Peking by the Kuomintang in 1928 the capital was moved to Nanking. Peking became a mere district city, under its old name of Peiping. The Legations were gradually further broken up, this time geographically, as several colin-tries boran to keep their representatives at Shanghai or Nanking. Most of the Legations of the major powers lid not, however, immediately follow the new government south, fora variety of reasons chief of which (Continued on page 581.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.