The Manchus were in power for nearly two hundred and seventy years, and during that period there were various risings, some of a formidable character, against them and in favor of descendants of the native Ming dynasty which they had displaced; powerful secret organizations, such as the famous “Triad Society,” plotted and conspired to put a Ming prince on the throne; but all was vain.  It had come to be generally believed that the race of the Mings had died out, but a recent dispatch from China speaks of there still being a representative in existence, who possibly might give serious trouble to the new republic.  In any case, for a long time past the Mings had ceased to give the Manchus any concern; the pressure upon the latter came from outside the empire, but that in its turn reacted profoundly on the internal situation.  The wars with France and England had but a slight effect on China; though the foreign devils beat it in war it yet despised them.  The effect of the war with Japan, in 1894, was something quite different, beginning the real awakening of China and imparting life and vigor to the new reform movement which had its origin in Canton, the great city of the south, whose highly intelligent people have most quickly felt and most readily and strongly responded to outside influences.  Regarded by the Chinese as at least partially civilized, the Japanese were placed in a higher category than the Western barbarians, but as their triumph over China was attributed to their adoption of Western military methods and equipment, the more enlightened Chinese came to the conclusion that, however contemptible the men of the Western world were, the main secret of their success, as of that of Japan, was open enough.  They decided that Western learning and modes of government and organization must be studied and copied, as Japan had studied and copied them, if the Celestial Empire was to endure.  It was a case on the largest scale of self-preservation, and some part, at least, of the truth was glimpsed by the Throne itself.

Something, but not much, was heard of a republic while Tzu Hsi lived; before her death the principle of a constitution, with a national parliament and provincial assemblies, had been accepted by the Throne—­with reservations limiting the spheres of these representative bodies, retaining the supreme power in the Throne, and in the case of the national parliament delaying its coming into existence for a term of years.

By Tzu Hsi’s commands, the Throne passed at her death into the hands of a sort of commission; a child of two years of age, a nephew of Kuang Hsu, called Pu Yi, became Emperor under the dynastic name of Hsuan Tung; his father, Prince Chun, was nominated Regent, but was ordered to consult the new Dowager Empress, Lung Yu, the widow of Kuang Hsu, and to be governed by her decisions in all important matters of State.  Prince Chun, amiable in disposition but weak and vacillating in character, and not always