The Emperor of China has woke up, and has so
frightened the officials that his legal "mother," the Empress Dowager, has sent him to bed again. He issued, without consulting Ins Councillors, decrees establishing a post, authorising all subjects to petition the throne, allowing discussion in print, and ordered the monthly publication of all official receipts and disbursements. The last decree was too much for the patience of plundering Mandarins. They appealed to the Empress, and she reappeared at the Council Board, ordered all reports to go before her, and in fact resumed the Regency, possibly also in official form. Moreover, she banished Kang-yu-Mai, "the Cantonese reformer who has gained the Emperor's ear." We suspect that the Japanese Marquis Ito, who has been visiting Pekin, was as influential as the Cantonese sage, and should not be surprised if the Emperor got out of bed again. He is said to be a weak man —he has never had a chance—but he, not the Empress, is the Son of Heaven, and if he accepts a strong native adviser, Chinese or Japanese, he may execute some of the plunderers yet. That is, of course, if the rumour current in Shanghai of his assassination should prove not true,—a point on which it is difficult to form an opinion. Killing the Emperor is in China parricide, but Emperors have been killed.
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