The person of the Emperor is held so sacred that neither iron nor steel is ever allowed to touch him, which of course makes it impossible for him to receive surgical aid should he be suffering from any of the diseases requiring the use of the knife. Fortunately he was vaccinated when an infant in the cradle, before those in charge of him had any suspicion of the great destiny in store for him. The story goes that a doctor who proposed to save the life of a Chinese Emperor by bleeding him, nearly lost his own head as a punishment. The same superstition prevails in Corea, where one of the kings died in the eighteenth century, when he might have been saved if he, or rather those about him, could have been induced to allow a lancet to be used on his sacred person.
The young Emperor was declared of age in 1889, and he was at once informed that the foreign ministers would be glad to be allowed to pay their respects to him on this auspicious occasion. To their great surprise consent to their reception was given not very long afterwards, that consent being published in the Pekin Gazette in the following year in terms most flattering to all concerned. After the usual preamble the Emperor was made to say:
AN IMPORTANT INTERVIEW
"The ministers of the various powers residing in Pekin have abundantly shown their loyal desire to maintain peaceful relations and international friendship. This I cordially recognize, and I rejoice in it.... It is also hereby decreed that a day be fixed every year for an audience; ... on the next day the foreign ministers are to be received at a banquet at the Foreign Office. The same is to be done every year in the first month, and the rule will be the same on each occasion..." The remainder of the proclamation was couched in equally courteous terms, presenting a very marked contrast to the grudging, indeed almost insolent, assent given by previous Emperors to any request for an audience by the representatives of the European powers. When the interview took place, moreover, the various ministers were admitted to the presence of their host one by one, instead of all together as on previous occasions, whilst the attachés, etc., were received collectively later. The Emperor was seated on a raised platform at the end of the vast reception-hall, with Prince Ching, President of the Foreign Board, kneeling on one side. As each minister came up to the platform making three bows on the way, he was introduced by the Prince, who took from him the letters of credence and placed them on a table near the Son of Heaven, who, after bowing an acknowledgment, made a long speech to the Prince, who listened to it on his knees. The reply completed, he rose, and with uplifted arms went down into the body of the hall, where he repeated to the foreign interpreter the following speech:
"We desire to convey to all the ministers, chargés d'affaires, and secretaries, who have presented congratulations to us, that we truly appreciate, and are very pleased with all their kind expressions, and we sincerely wish that their respective sovereigns may this year have all things according to their hearts' desire, and that their happiness and prosperity may increase. We also hope that you ministers will stay long in China in the full enjoyment of health, and that friendly relations between China and foreign countries will never cease."
Surely nothing could be more courteous and conciliatory than the behaviour of the young Emperor on this important occasion, and but for the terrible war with Japan, which so soon afterwards shook his throne to its foundations, he might perhaps have won a real alliance with some Western power, which would have saved him from the partition of his Empire, from which there is now no hope of escape.
On the coming of age of the Son of Heaven, his mother, the Princess of Chun, was raised to the rank of Empress, but his father, the Prince, received no accession of dignity. Both parents, when admitted to the presence of their august son, kneel to him and treat him as a being altogether superior to themselves. Still young, Kwang-Sen is fond of riding, shooting with the bow-and-arrow, and skating. His day is rigidly portioned out, and he has little real liberty. When he was a child his teachers approached him on their knees, and were only allowed to sit in his presence when he gave them permission. He had to work at the Chinese and Manchu languages for an hour and a half every day, and is really extremely well-educated, though, fortunately for foreigners, he is anything but fond of the mandarins or literati, who would gladly poison his mind against everything European. At regular intervals he goes to do homage at the tombs of his ancestors, as do all of high or low degree in China, and on these solemn occasions he is accompanied by the Empresses and a suite of no less than thirty thousand persons, including princes, nobles, mandarins, apparitors, lictors, banner-bearers, porters, etc. Long before dawn on the day of the ceremony the main road is strewn with fine sand, and decorated with white and blue velvet flags, whilst at regular intervals tables are set up covered with yellow drapery, and bearing the inscription, Ya Tao, signifying the Imperial road, words full of terrible significance to the Chinese, for they mean that all on pain of death should keep out of the way of the Son of Heaven.
STRINGENT MEASURES OF PRECAUTION
The most stringent measures are taken even in the capital to protect the sovereign from the gaze of the profane. Not only are all the inhabitants compelled to close the doors of their houses when he is about to pass, but no one is allowed to climb on the walls of the town, lest from them they should catch even a glimpse of the Imperial procession. Nor is it only reverence for the sacred person which leads to all these precautions: there is the danger that some evil-minded person might attempt to take the life of the Emperor by firing at him from a distance with one of those awful engines of destruction, the range of which even now seems so extraordinary to the Celestials, in spite of their recent experiences in the war with the Japanese. The Chinese police forbid even European women to show themselves on the day of the procession, lest the sovereign should see them, for the myrmidons of the law, accustomed to the strict seclusion of the female sex in their native land, believe that those who enjoy a liberty such as that of the wives and daughters of the diplomatists, to be capable of any crime even against the venerated Son of Heaven.
SECONDARY WIVES IN CHINA