A correspondent writing in the Times of Tuesday announced the
death of Li Lien-ying, Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Household at Peking. Readers of Messrs. Bland and Back- house's most interesting book on the late Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi will remember the account of the ascendency estab- lished over the Empress's mind by Li Lien-ying during the Boxer outbreak and the siege of the Legations. It was he who persuaded her to believe that the Boxers possessed miraculous gifts, and he who frequently prevailed against the moderating advice of Jung La when there was a question of
renewing the attacks on the Legations. Li Lien-ying began life as a cobbler's apprentice, and, having become a Court Eunuch, soon rose into great favour, thanks to his natural graces. He was unscrupulous and corrupt to the last degree, and wielded, under the protection of the Empress, almost unlimited power. He lost a large part of the great fortune he had squeezed out of his country when the Palace and its surroundings were looted. But he amassed another fortune in his few remaining years, and is said to have died worth two-and-a-half millions sterling. Such is the type of man under whom China groans in her fumbling movements towards reform.
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