"Your Excellency:
"I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that we have reverently received the following testamentary statement of Her Imperial Majesty Tze-hsi, etc., the Great Empress Dowager:
"'Although of scanty merit, I received the command of His Majesty the Emperor Wen Tsung-hsien (the posthumous title of Hsien Feng) to occupy a throne prepared for me in the palace. When the Emperor Mu Tsung I (Tung Chih) as a child succeeded to the throne, violence and confusion prevailed. It was a critical period of suppression by force. "Long-hairs" (Tai-ping rebels) and the "twisted turbans" (Nien Fei) were in rebellion. The Mohammedans and the aborigines had commenced to make trouble. There were many disturbances along the seacoast. The people were destitute. Ulcers and sores met the eye on every side. Cooperating with the Empress Dowager Hsiao Chen-hsien, I supported and taught the Emperor and toiled day and night. According to the instructions contained in the testamentary counsels of the Emperor Wen Tsung-hsien (Hsien Feng) I urged on the officials of Peking and the provinces and all the military commanders, determining the policy to be followed, diligently searching the right way of governing, choosing the upright for official positions, rescuing from calamity and pitying the people, and so obtained the protection of Heaven, gaining peace and tranquillity instead of distress and danger. Then the Emperor Mu Tsung I (Tung Chih) departed this life and the late Emperor succeeded to the throne. The times became still harder and the people in still greater straits, sorrow within and calamity without, confusion and noise; I had no recourse but to give instruction in government once more.
"'The year before last the preparatory measures for the institution of constitutional government were published. This year the time limits for the measures preparatory to constitutional government have been promulgated. Attending to these myriad affairs the strength of my heart has been exhausted. Fortunately my constitution was originally strong and up to the present I have stood the strain. Unexpectedly from the summer and autumn of this year I have been ill and have not been able to assist in the multitudinous affairs of government with tranquillity. Appetite and the power to sleep have gone. This has continued for a long time until my strength is exhausted and I have not dared to rest for even a day. On the 21st of this moon [November 14th] came the sorrow of the death of the late Emperor, and I was unable to control myself, so that my illness increased till I was unable to rise from my bed. I look back upon our fifty years of sorrow and trouble. I have been continually in a state of high tension without a moment's respite. Now a reform in the method of government has been commenced and there begins to be a clue to follow. The Emperor now succeeding to the throne is in his infancy. All depends upon his instruction and guidance. The Prince Regent and all the officials of Peking and the provinces should exert themselves to strengthen the foundations of our empire. Let the Emperor now succeedings to the throne make his country's affairs of first importance and moderate his sorrow, diligently attending to his studies so that he may in future illustrate the instruction which he has received. This is my devout hope. Let the mourning period be for twenty-seven days only. Let this be proclaimed to the empire that all may know.'"
Still one more edict was necessary to complete this remarkable list, and this was sent to the legations on the 17th of November. It is as follows:
"I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that on the 22d of the moon [November 15, 1908] I reverently received the following edict:
"We received in our early childhood the love and care of Tze-hsi, etc., the Great Empress Dowager. Our gratitude is boundless. We have received the command to succeed to the throne and we fully expected that the gentle Empress Dowager would be vigorous and reach a hundred years so that we might be cherished and made glad and reverently receive her instructions so that our government might be established and the state made firm. But her toil by day and night gradually weakened her. Medicine was constantly administered in the hope that she might recover. Contrary to our hopes, on the 21st day of the moon [November 14th] at the wei-k'o [1-3 P.M.] she took the fairy ride and ascended to the far country. We cried out and mourned how frantically! We learn from her testamentary statement that the period of full mourning is to be limited to twenty-seven days. We certainly cannot be satisfied with this. Full mourning must be worn for one hundred days and half mourning for twenty-seven months, by which our grief may be partly expressed. The order to restrain grief so that the affairs of the empire may be of first importance we dare not disregard, as it is her parting command. We will strive to be temperate so as to comfort the spirit of the late Empress in Heaven."
We call attention to the fact that according to the fourth of these edicts the death of the Emperor is put at from 5 to 7 P. M on the evening of the 14th of November, while that of the Empress Dowager is from 1 to 3 P. M. of the same day at least two hours earlier, and that in her last edict she is made to speak of the death of Kuang Hsu. Whether these dates have become mixed in crossing to America we have not been able to ascertain, though we think it more than likely that her death occurred on November 15th instead of the 14th.