[31] "The boasted influence that the Government of China possesses over its subjects is almost entirely moral, and they really do not possess the power to cope with a popular tumult, which is the object of their greatest dread."—H. Parkes, at Foochow, May 1, 1846, æt. seventeen.
[32] The same who is now governor of Shantung.
[33] See [vol. i. p. 38].
[34] Mr Freeman-Mitford, in 'The Attaché at Peking,' recently published, tells the following good story illustrative of this (p. 168). M. de Mas, the Spanish Minister, happening to be at the house of Hêng-Chi, and knowing that he had a little son of whom he was inordinately proud, thought it would be a very pretty compliment if he asked to see the little boy, who was accordingly produced, sucking his thumb after the manner of his years. Him his father ordered to pay his respects to M. de Mas—that is to say, shake his united fists at him in token of salutation; instead of which the child, after long silence and much urging, taking his thumb deliberately out of his mouth roared out "Kwei-tzŭ" (devils) at the top of his voice and fled.
[35] Referring to the massacre of Armenian Christians, with regard to which Germany took up a very different attitude from that now assumed towards China—a circumstance, by the way, which serves to reduce the "Christian" factor in the present intervention to its proper value.
[36] Or, as M. Paul Boell expresses it, "Traitant la Chine tantôt comme un pouvoir tout à fait formidable, tantôt comme une puissance nègre de septième ordre."
[37] Kwanghsu, being first cousin to the deceased Emperor Tungchih, could not, according to Chinese usage, be his heir. In adopting him, therefore, as posthumous heir to the previous Emperor Hsienfêng, his uncle, the Regent left her own son, the Emperor Tungchih, without an heir, promising to supply the want from the future offspring of Kwanghsu, or by some other adoption; but against this procedure strong protests were made. The arrangement, however, conferred upon the Dowager-Empress, as the widow of Hsienfêng, the authority of a mother over his heir, a circumstance which to a large extent accounts for the filial deference the reigning emperor has always paid to his adoptive mother.
[38] Thirty years ago the great Nanking viceroy, Tsêng Kwo-fan, assured the Government in a memorial to the throne that if the question of treaty revision could not be satisfactorily arranged with foreigners, he had forces enough under his orders to drive them all into the sea.
[39] The question of removing the capital to a more convenient site has been discussed academically—by foreigners—for many years, their view being that Nanking would be the most suitable. No doubt a central point open to the sea would be more convenient for the maritime Powers, but that is evidently not an advantage which commends itself to the Chinese themselves. During the Japanese war their strategists urged the removal of the Court from Peking to Signan fu in Shensi, simply on the ground of the inaccessibility of the latter site. The transport was prepared and the Emperor was ready, but the Empress-Dowager vetoed the project.
[40] In 1863 the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L.