The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-06-15
BEHIND CHINA'S THRONE
A WOMAN IS THE POWER WHICH
RULES THE KINGDOM
The Dowager Empress Runs Things
While Her Son Poses as Emperor
She Has Ruled the Tsung Lii
Yamen for More Than IL Genera
tion-ImperiaI Palace Under Her
Thumb.

From the Westminster Review.
There is a young man in Pekin who
would be trembling just now in his
skin if he were only able to realize
properly the danger that is threatened
him and his empire. He is the En-
peror Kuang Hsu, euphemistically
known as the son of heaven and
bother Of the sun. He is the most Sc
cluded monarch on earth. When he
appears in public, which is rarely, mat
ting is hung up in front of all the
houses and strips of cloth are stretched
across the alleys and side streets
through which the imperial procession
must pass. He is invariably accom-
panied by vast retinue Of soldiers
and an army of courtiers, and the man
who peeps around the corner or has
his eyes fastened to a hole in the mat
ting is liable to be blinded by a bullet
or an arrow. When he is at home he
is carefully hidden away in the center
of a big Tartar city (Which is in the
center of the Chinese city, at Pekin,
and you have to go through three sets
of walls-simply an impossible task
for ar European visitor-befOre you
approach the building in which he is
kept, guarded by eunuchs.
Though he is generally credited with
the possession of an ugly temper.
W
brac of his apartments when he can
not have his own way, his efforts at
ruling go no further than doing what
he is told to do. He is kept in order
ancestor worship being strong point
in the Celestial moral code-by the
empress doWager, who practically runs
the state show and who is influenced
sometimes by whims, working through
a leaven of diluted statesmanlike feel
H. 1s,,<.
palace intrigue which works through
the favorable medium of her favorite
eunuch, Pitsiani Kuang Hsu-which
means the illustrious succession-has
been under the old Iady's thumb since
he was four years Of age, when he
was chosen to succeed T'ugn-chi. She
supervised his education. She picked
out his wives for him and she makes
the ladies of his hare1n- skip today, If
they don't walk the chalk in her pres
ence. OF course she took her own
friends when she selected his wives,
and she has him SO hemmed about with
her officials and girls that, If he had a
will Of his own, he wouldn't know how
to use it.
The empress dowager, who has boss
ed the ,tsung-n-yamen for a genera
tien, lis now sixty-three years old She
was the secondary wife, of the EN-
head Of the empire during a greater
part of the. Tapping rebellion. She
managed it's affairs during its war
with France, and she has had more
than one taste of Russian diplomacy
She is said to have a mind of her own
and all of the Chinese respect and fear
her. She is a stickler as to form, and
insists that all business shall be done
through the young emperor, though
She is even more secluded than the
emperor, and. when she receives her
officials and the cabinet ministers, her
practice is to sit behind a screen while
they talk at her through it-unless she
has something strong to say to them.
The emperor is twenty-seyen, lean,
understood ands unhealthy. His fea-
lures are Tartar, as contradiStinguish
ed from Chinese, the reigning family
probably does not Tartar. He does
all his business at night, and he sleeps
in the daytime. He begins his work
about in the morning, after mid
night breakfast, when he receives his
cabinet ministers, who, on being ush-
cred into his presence, go down on
their knees and perform the seven
faced "Kotou"-that is, bump their
heads again and again on the floor.
before him. Everything about and
connected with KuangHsu is regulat-
ed by law, even to his meals. Accord
ing to the old Chinese books, there
must be placed before him daily thirty
pounds of meat in a basin and seven
pounds boiled into soup. He has a
daily allowance Of about a pound of
hogs fat and butter, and he has the
right to order two sheep, two fowls
and two ducks, while his drink for the
day is restricted to the milk of eighty
cows and the sleeping of seventy-five
parcels of tea. 1t is probable that his
real diet is different, but these are the
regulation provisions. and. if he desires
anything that is not on the menu, the
board having charge Of the imperial
table has to be consulted 1t is more
than doubtful whether his majesty
realizes his exalted situation and his
power. He has been hemmed in and
fooled all his life. He knows nothing
Of modern civilization, ard. in spite of
the recent war, next to nothing of
modern warfare. He has never re-
viewed, and is not capable of review
ing his army. and his common amuse-
ment is to shoot with bow and ar
row. IT he ever had in him the maxi
ings of a character, they must have
been ruined long since by his mode of
lie and his surroundings.