the difficulties of carrying out the ancient law of three years' mourning, and the Emperor refusing to release himself from it, and named the Princes of the Blood, Mongol Princes, and high Chinese statesmen who were entitled to the distinction of sharing in Some of the 100 days' mourning, all other Princes and Ministers being ordered to wear mourning for twenty-seven days only and to burn the garments when discarded. Kuang Hsil's concubines were raised in rank by special Decree, and each of them was granted an allowance of 500 taels (601) a-month for life. A characteristic note was introduced by the publication of a telegraphic Memorial of Tong Shoa-yi proposing to alter the third ideograph of his own name, which happens to be identical with the second of the new Emperor's, to another ideograph of the same sound, and inquiring whether any change was to be made in the Imperial letter he was bearing to President Roosevelt.
On the 19th November appeared a long panegyric of the life work of the August Empress Dowager. Every important achievement or reform in the two reigns of Tung Chih and Kuang Hsü (1861-1908) is laid to her credit, and her claims to a place in Chinese history surpassing the most famous Empresses of past dynasties are
with up a command set out with the customary rhetoric. This classic composition winds
to the Grand Secretariat and the various Boards to consult together as to the posthumous title to be bestowed on Her late Majesty.
Another Decree of the 19th permitted the Mongol Princes and Nobles in attendance at Court to join in the obsequies, released those not at Court from the obligation to come, and remitted the tributary presents due from Mongol Chieftains during the present year.
Funeral rites on a scale of exceptional grandeur were ordered for the Empress Dowager in a Decree of the 20th November, and the tomb which has been in preparation for Her Majesty at the Eastern Mausolea for thirteen years past, and which And here it may be mentioned has lately been completed, was given an official name. that the importance attached to Imperial places of sepulture was shown as usual by the threefold elevation of the ideographs of which the name was composed. That there was some opposition in the Imperial Family to the changes made in the headship of the Government is evident from another Decree of the 20th November, which quoted the earlier mandate of the Empress Dowager conferring supreme control on the Prince Regent, and enjoined strict obedience thereto by the Princes of the Blood, whose duty it was to set an example to the nation. This was followed by a severe general Ordinance against revolutionaries and disturbers of the peace, which was provoked probably by the mutiny in Anhui, reported in my telegrams to you Nas. 190 to 193 of the 21st, 23rd, 24th, and 25th instant respectively.
I have the honour to inelose, for your information, précis translation of the Decrees referred to in the preceding summary, and I also transinit copy of an interesting note by Dr. G. Douglas Gray, physician to the Legation, on the medical facts and circumstances attending the deaths of the Emperor and Empress. A crop of ramours of foul play in one or other case was to be expected, but in all the information which has reached me I can discern nothing upon which to ground a belief that either the Emperor or Empress died from other than natural causes.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
J. N. JORDAN.
Translations of Imperial Decrees, November 14 to 20, 1908.
Further Decree of the Empress Dowager, November 14, 1908. WHEREAS the Emperor Mu Tsung Yi (T'ung Chih) died without issue, an Edict was published on the 12th January, 1875, commanding that if a son should be born to the Emperor Kuang Hsü he should be regarded as the heir of the Emperor Tung Chib.
Now the Emperor Kuang Hsü is also deceased without issue, and no other course remains but to take P'u Yi, son of the Prince Regent Tsai Feng, as the adopted heir of the Emperor Mu Tsung Yi (Tung Chib), and at the same time as the successor of the late Emperor.
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Imperial Decree received by the Grand Secretariat, November 15, 1908.
We, the Emperor, having entered upon the great inheritance, our revered grand- mother, Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, shall henceforth be honoured by the appellation of the August Empress Dowager, and our mother by adoption, Her Majesty the Empress, by the appellation of Empress Dowager. Let the proper Department examine the Statutes and inform us by Memorial of the forms and ceremonies necessary under such circumstances.
Further Decree of the Emperor.
We have received the following Decree from Her Majesty the August Empress Dowager:-
"The Prince Regent Tsai Feng is now commanded to control the State. Let the Grand Secretariat and the various Boards and metropolitan Departments consult together respecting the ceremonies.”
Decree of the Empress Dounger, November 15, 1908.
The Princes Li Shih To and Jai K'uei Pin, Na Yen Tu, Prince of the Khalkhas, Tsai Tse, Imperial Duke of the First Decree and President of the Board of Finance, the Grand Secretaries Shih Hsu and Na-t'ung, Yuan Shih-k'ai, President of the Board of Foreign Affairs, Pu Liang, President of the Board of Rites, and Chi-lu and Tsung-ch'ung, Comptrollers of the Imperial Household, are ordered to reverently perform the mourning rites and to make all arrangements connected therewith.
Decree of the Empress Dowager, November 15, 1908.
Yesterday a Decree was issued specially cominanding the Prince Regent to superintend the State, and instructing that all military and Government affairs whatsoever should be executed in obedience to our advice, instructions, and decisions. I am now dangerously ill and fear that I cannot recover. Hereafter let the Prince Regent take the decisions in military and Government affairs. In matters of gravity in which he must request a Decree of the Empress Dowager (Consort of the Emperor Kuang Hsü) the Prince Regent will take Her Majesty's pleasure in person.
Decree of the Emperor, November 13, 1908.
By a Decree of the Emperor Hsuan Tsung Ch'eng (Tao Kuang), issued in the 3rd month of the 26th year of his reign (April 1846), it was ordained that the use of the two characters forming the personal name of the Emperor should not be entirely forbidden, but that thereafter, on the accession of a new Emperor, the first character of his personal appellation should remain in use unaltered and that the question of what strokes should be omitted in the formation of the second character should be decided when the occasion arose. It was directed that this should be the invariable rule.
In obedience to the will of our illustrious ancestor, we direct that the first character of our present name shall continue to be written as heretofore, and that as a mark of reverence a stroke shall be omitted from the second character, which shall hereafter be written thus ( *). This enactment does not apply to books printed
prior to the issue of the present Decree.
Further Decrees of the Emperor, November 15, 1908.
On the occasion of the death of the Emperor Mu Tsung Yi (Tung Chih) in the fifteenth year of his reign (1875), His late Majesty, following the precedent already established, absolved the officers in the provinces-Tartar-Generals, Governors-General, Governors, Commanders-in-chief, Brigade-Generals, Provincial Treasurers, and Judges, as well as Salt Commissioners and Superintendents of Customs and of Imperial Mann- factories-from the duty of coming to the capital to pay their respects to the Imperial * Not reproduced.
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