The news from Pekin is hardly intelligible. The Emperor is
not dead, but the Dowager-Empress now signs decrees in her own name, and it is stated that at a recent sitting of the Council an heir to the throne was deliberately and finally selected. All the reforming decrees have been cancelled, and one man at least of some importance has been executed on the charge that he made himself "a slave to foreigners." All this looks as if it were intended to compel the Emperor to abdicate, and fill the throne with some candidate supposed to be devoted to the reactionary party. The Europeans in Pekin continue to be uneasy, and manifest their international jealousies by an absurd complaint that the Russian Ambassador has fifty more guards than any other representative. The fact would seem to indicate that the Russian Ambassador is more nervous than his rivals, but the bulletin-makers see in it proof that armies of Russians will shortly be present in Pekin. The truth is the English in China are so bewildered by their own excited imaginations, that they see men as trees walking. China will be overthrown very likely, but hardly by charges of the Ambassador's guard, even if it is "Cossack." Why not wait quietly till the great Governments concerned can come to an agreement or a quarrel
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