The Portland daily press., 1898-03-10
BEHIND THE THRONE IN3cHINA.
The Powers that Rule There.-The En-
peror Nonentitv and the Dowager
Empress the Empires Real Boss.
(From the Westminster Review

would be trembling just now IN MS ski
if he were only able to realize properly
the danger that is threatened to him and
his empire by some of those very kind
friends who have come to him dona
ferentes. He is the Emperor Kuane
Hsu, euphemistically known, among other
outrageous titles, as the son of heaven
and brother of the sun. He is the most
secluded monarch on earth. When he
appears in public, which is very rarely,
mating 10 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 accompanied by vast
retinue of soldiers and an army of cour'
tiers, and the man who peeps around the
corner or has his eyes fastened to hole
in the mating 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 big Tartar city (Which is in the CEN
ter of the Chinese city, at Pekin, and you
have to go through three sets OF walls
simply an impossible task for European
visitor-before you approach the building
in which he is kept guarded by eunuchs.
First, there are the immense walls OF the
great Tartar city, which are 60 feet thick
and as tall as London fat. These in
close a large area filed up with the houses
of Tartars and government buildings,
which run round space the middle OF
which is known as the imperial city.
This has high wall of gray bricks about
six miles in circumference, and it in
cluded the outside palaces, the pleasure
grounds, and the temples of the sacred
city. The emperor is kept inside this,
and his exclusive quarters are known as
the Purple Forbidden city. The walls OF
this last pen are rigidly guarded. They
inclose the quarters of the emperor, his
family, the ladies Of the royal harem, and
the thousands of eunuchs who make VI
the servants, and include buildings for
court ceremonies, which are arranged
around the sides of ridge of palaces from
the north to the south The emperor him
self lives in the northwestern part OF the
pen and the empress dowager has palace
near by. In another part OF the Enclosure
is the hall of literary abyss, or the i'm
perial library, and in this the cabinet
officers (about whom more anon) holo
their sessions. Pekin is huge city
credited with /, 100000 Inhabitants, bul
auart from the eunuchs, the toadles, and
the women who haunt the Purple For
hidden city, it is doubtful II 5000 OF this
vast number have ever set eyes upon the
monarch, and among Europeans ano
Americans it is only the ambassador
who are permitted to gaze upon MS aH'
gust countenance.
Though he is generally credited with the
possession of an ugly temper. which in
cites him to smash the brlc- a. prac OF hli
apartments when he cannot have his oWT
way, his efforts at ruling go no turthel
than doing what he is told to do. He ii
kept in order-ancestor worship being
strong point in the Celestial moral code
by the old empress dowager, who prac
ticalIy runs the state show, and who is
Influenced sometimes by whim working
through thin leaven of diluted states
manlike feeling, and sometimes by tha
backstairs palace intrigue which works
through the favorable medium OF hel
fayorite eunuch, Pitsian-i Auang Hsu-
which means the illustrious succession
has been under the old lady's thumb
y
was chosen to succeed T'ung-chl. She
supervised his education. She picked Out
his wives for him, and she makes the
ladies of his hareIn skip today II they
don't walk chalk in her presence. OF
course she took her own friends when
she selected his wives, and she has hin
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 en-
press dowager, who has bossed the tsung
| Ii-yamen for a generation. is now 6t
wears old. She was the secondary wife OF
| thegemperor Hsien Fung. She was al
| the head of the empire during greater
part of the Tapping rebellion. She man
aged its affairs during its war with
| France and she has had more than one
taste of Russian diplomacy. She is sale
to have a mind Of her own, and all of tn.
| Chinese respect and fear her. She is {
| stickler as to fern, and insists that al
| business shall be done through the young
emperor, though she really directs Wha1
he Is to do. She is even more secluded
1 than the emperor, and when she receiver
her officials and the cabinet ministers he
practice is to sit behind screen while
they talk at her through it-unless sh'
has something strong to say to them.
The emperor is 27, lean. understood ant
unhealthy. His features are Tartar a
contradistingushed from Chinese; thu
reigning family being las every on
should know, but probably does not
Tartar. He does all his business at nigh
and he sleeps in the daytime. He Begin
his work about in the morning. after
midnight breakfast. when he receives hi
cabinet ministers, who, on being usheret
| into his presence, go down on their knee
and perform the seven faced ''Ko -tou"-
that is, bump their heads again and agail
on the floor. They also remain on thel
knees while before him. Everything
about and connected with Kuang Hsu i
regulated by law, even to his meals. Ac
cording to the old Chinese books Their
MIST be placed before him daily 30 pound
of meat in basin and seven pound
boiled into soup. He has a daily allow
ance Of about pound of hogs fat ant
butter, and he has the right to order tw'
Sheep two fowls and two ducks, Will
his drink for the day Is restricted to tn
milk Of so COWS and the stepping of q
parcels of tea. 1t is probable that his rea
diet is different, but these are the regu
|