So ends this remarkable missive which has become an historic document in the archives of the Republic.  Once again it was whispered that so great an impression did this fateful warning produce on the Emperor-elect that he was within an ace of cancelling the disastrous scheme which now enmeshed him.  But in the end family influence won the day; and stubbornly and doggedly the doomed man pushed on with his attempt to crush revolt and consolidate his crumbling position.

Every possible effort was made to minimize the effect of international influence on the situation.  As the sycophantic vernacular press of the capital, long drilled to blind subservience, had begun to speak of his enthronement as a certainty on the 9th February, a Circular Note was sent to the Five Allied Powers that no such date had been fixed, and that the newspaper reports to that effect were inventions.  In order specially to conciliate Japan, a high official was appointed to proceed on an Embassy to Tokio to grant special industrial concessions—­a manoeuvre which was met with the official refusal of the Tokio Government to be so placated.  Peking was coldly informed that owing to “court engagements” it would be impossible for the Emperor of Japan to receive any Chinese Mission.  After this open rebuff attention was concentrated on “the punitive expedition” to chastise the disaffected South, 80,000 men being put in the field and a reserve of 80,000 mobilized behind them.  An attempt was also made to win over waverers by an indiscriminate distribution of patents of nobility.  Princes, Dukes, Marquises, Viscounts and Barons were created in great batches overnight only to be declined in very many cases, one of the most precious possessions of the Chinese race being its sense of humour.  Every one, or almost every one, knew that the new patents were not worth the paper they were written on, and that in future years the members of this spurious nobility would be exposed to something worse than contempt.  France was invited to close the Tonkin frontier, but this request also met with a rebuff, and revolutionists and arms were conveyed in an ever-more menacing manner into the revolted province of Yunnan by the French railways.  A Princedom was at length conferred on Lung Chi Kwang, the Military Governor of Canton, Canton being a pivotal point and Lung Chi Kwang, one of the most cold-blooded murderers in China, in the hope that this would spur him to such an orgy of crime that the South would be crushed.  Precisely the opposite occurred, since even murderers are able to read the signs of the times.  Attempts were likewise made to enforce the use of the new Imperial Calendar, but little success crowned such efforts, no one outside the metropolis believing for a moment that this innovation possessed any of the elements of permanence.  Meanwhile the monetary position steadily worsened, the lack of money becoming so marked as to spread panic.  Still, in spite of this, the leaders refused to take warning, and although the