There had not been, under the dynasty in question, any such wave of devotional fervour as was experienced under more than one previous dynasty.  Neither the dreams of Buddhism, nor the promises of immortality held out by the Taoists, seem to have influenced in a religious, as opposed to a superstitious sense, the rather Boeotian mind of the Manchu.  The learned emperors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries accepted Confucianism as sufficient for every-day humanity, and did all in their power to preserve it as a quasi-State religion.  Thus, Buddhism was not favoured at the expense of Taoism, nor vice versa; Mahometanism was tolerated so long as there was no suspicion of disloyalty; Christianity, on the other hand, was bitterly opposed, being genuinely regarded for a long time as a cloak for territorial aggression.

To return to the reforms.  Young Manchus of noble family were to be sent abroad for an education on wider lines than it was possible to obtain at home.  This last was in every way a desirable measure.  No Manchu had ever visited the West; all the officials previously sent to foreign countries had been Chinese.  But other proposed changes were not of equal value.

At the back of this reform movement was a small band of earnest men who suffered from too much zeal, which led to premature action.  A plot was conceived, under which the Empress Dowager was to be arrested and imprisoned; but this was betrayed by Yuean Shih-k`ai, and she turned the tables by suddenly arresting and imprisoning the Emperor, and promptly decapitating all the conspirators, with the exception of K`ang Yu-wei, who succeeded in escaping.  He had been the moving spirit of the abortive revolution; he was a fine scholar, and had completely gained the ear of the Emperor.  The latter became henceforth to the end of his life a person of no importance, while China, for the third time in history, passed under the dominion of a woman.  There was no secret about it; the Empress Dowager, popularly known as the Old Buddha, had succeeded in terrorizing every one who came in contact with her, and her word was law.  It was said of one of the Imperial princes that he was “horribly afraid of her Majesty, and that when she spoke to him he was on tenter-hooks, as though thorns pricked him, and the sweat ran down his face.”

All promise of reform now disappeared from the Imperial programme, and the recent edicts, which had raised premature hope in this direction, were annulled; the old regime was to prevail once more.  The weakness of this policy was emphasized in the following year (1899), when England removed from Japan the stigma of extra-territorial jurisdiction, by which act British defendants, in civil and criminal cases alike, now became amenable to Japanese tribunals.  Japan had set herself to work to frame a code, and had trained lawyers for the administration of justice; China had done nothing, content that on her own territory foreigners