Evening star., 1898-03-12
BEHIND CHINAS THRONE
The Emperor Nonentity, the Dowager En-
press is 1T"
Characteristics, Surroundings and
Physical Appearance of the
Young Ruler.
From the Westminster Review.

rToH tne NtstLuiHster neNteW
There is 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 to him and his
| empire. He is the Emperor Kuang Hsu,
euphemistically known 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 rarely, mating
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 In
variably accompanied by vast retinue of
soldiers and an army Of cOurtiers, and the
man who peeps around the corner or has
mis- eyes fastened to hole in the mating
is liable to be blinded by 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 center of the Chinese
city, at Pekin. and you have to go through
three sets of walls-simply an impossible
task for a European visitor-before you ap-
proach the building in which he is kept,
guarded by eunuchs.
Though he is generally credited with the
possession of an ugly temper which incites
him to smash the bric-a-brac of his apart
| ments when he cannot 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
old empress dowager, who practically runs
the state show, and who is influenced some-
times by whims, working through thin
leaven of diluted statesmanlike feeling. and
sometimes by that backstairs palace in
trigue which works through the favorable
medium of her favorite eunuch, Pitsian-li.
kuang Hsu-which means the illustrious
succession-has been under the old lady's
thumb since he was four years Of age,
when he was chosen to succeed Tung -chi.
She supervised his education. She picked
out his wives for him, and she makes the
don't walk chalk in her presence. OF
course. she took her own friends when she
selected his wives, and she has him hem
med about with her officials and girls that
If he had will of his own he wouldn't
know how to use 1t. The empress dowager,
who has bossed the tsung-li-yamen for a
generation. is now sixty-three years old.
She was the secondary wife of the emperor
Hsien Fung. She was at the head of the
empire during greater part of the Tae-
ping 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 d mind Of
her own, and all of the Chinese respect
and fear her. She is a stickler to form,
and insists that all business shall be done
through the young emperor though she
really directs what he is to do. 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-sevep, lean, under
sized and unhealthy. His features are Tar
tar as contradistinguished from Chinese;
the reigning family being (as every one
shCuld know, but probably does not) Tar
tar. He does all his business at night and
he sleeps in the daytime. He begins his
work about two in the morning after mid
right breakfast, when he receives his cab
met ministers, who, on being ushered into
his presence, go down on their knees and
perform the seven-faced "Ko-tou'-that is
bump their heads again and again on the
hoor They also remain on their knees
while before him. Everything about and
corneoted with Kuang Hsu is regulated by
law. even to his meals. According 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 re-
stricted to the milk Of eighty cows and the
sleeping of seventy-fve parcels Of tea. 1t
is probable that his real diet is different
but these are the regulation provisions,
and II 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 civli-
zation, and, in spite Of the recent war, next
to nothing of modern warfare. He has
never reviewed, and is not capable of re-
viewing, his army and his common amuse-
ment is to shoot with a bow and arrow. If
he ever had in him the makings of a char
acter they must have been ruined long
since by his mode of life and his surround
ingS.