She Has Very Rightly Determined To Make The Best Of The Situation And To Derive All The Profit She Can

By taxing an article in such very general use and consumption; but there is an end to all representations like

Those made by prominent officials from Commissioner Lin to Prince Kung and Li Hung Chang, that the opium traffic was iniquitous, and constituted the sole cause of disagreement between China and England.

During these years the young Emperor Kwangsu was growing up. In February, 1887, in which month falls the Chinese New Year, it was announced that his marriage was postponed in consequence of his delicate health, and it was not until the new year of 1889, when Kwangsu was well advanced in his eighteenth year, that he was married to Yeh-ho-na-la, daughter of a Manchu general named Knei Hsiang, who had been specially selected for this great honor out of many hundred candidates. The marriage was celebrated with the usual state, and more than $5,000,000 is said to have been expended on the attendant ceremonies. At the same time the empress-regent issued her farewell edict and passed into retirement, but there is reason to believe that she continued to exercise no inconsiderable influence over the young emperor.

The marriage and assumption of governing power by the Emperor Kwangsu brought to the front the very important question of the right of audience by the foreign ministers resident at Pekin. This privilege had been conceded by China at the time of the Tientsin massacre, and it had been put into force on one occasion during the brief reign of Tungche. The time had again arrived for giving it effect, and, after long discussions as to the place of audience and the forms to be observed, Kwangsu issued in December, 1890, an edict appointing a day soon after the commencement of the Chinese New Year for the audience, and also arranging that it should be repeated annually on the same date. In March, 1891, Kwangsu gave his first reception to the foreign ministers, but after it was over some criticism and dissatisfaction were aroused by the fact that the ceremony had been held in the Tse Kung Ko, or Hall of Tributary Nations. As this was the first occasion on which Europeans saw the young emperor, the fact that he made a favorable impression on them is not without interest, and the following personal description of the master of so many millions may well be quoted. "Whatever the impression 'the Barbarians' made on him the idea which they carried away of the Emperor Kwangsu was pleasing and almost pathetic. His air is one of exceeding intelligence and gentleness, somewhat frightened and melancholy looking. His face is pale, and though it is distinguished by refinement and quiet dignity it has none of the force of his martial ancestors, nothing commanding or imperial, but is altogether mild, delicate, sad and kind. He is essentially Manchu in features, his skin is strangely pallid in hue, which is, no doubt, accounted for by the confinement of his life inside these forbidding walls and the absence of the ordinary pleasures and pursuits of youth, with the constant discharge of onerous, complicated and difficult duties of state which, it must be remembered, are, according to imperial Chinese etiquette, mostly transacted between the hours of two and six in the morning.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 339 of 366
Words from 176837 to 177404 of 191255