"Do you suppose he ever sees the edicts issued in his name?"

"Not at all. They are made by the conservatives and the Empress Dowager
and issued without his knowledge."

"And what do you propose to do?" we inquired.

"I shall leave for Shanghai as soon as I can safely do so," he replied.

Before the year had passed the Empress Dowager had been induced or
compelled to select a new Emperor. We cannot believe that she did it of
her own free will, and for several reasons. First, the child selected
was the son and the grandson of ultra conservative princes, and we
cannot but believe that as she had placed herself in the hands of the
conservative party, it was their selection rather than hers. Second, it
must have been a humiliation to her ever since she discovered that her
nephew, whom she had selected and placed upon the throne in order to
keep the succession in her own family, being the same generation as her
son who had died, could not worship him as his ancestor, and hence
could not legally occupy the throne, though as a matter of fact such a
condition is not unknown in Chinese history.

But if her humiliation was great, that of our boy-prisoner was still
greater, for he was compelled to witness an edict, proclaimed in his
own name, which made him say that as there was no hope of his having a
child of his own to succeed him, he had requested the Empress Dowager
to select a suitable person who should be proclaimed as the successor
of Tung Chih, his predecessor, thus turning himself out of the imperial
line. That this could not have been her choice is evidenced, further,
by the fact that just as soon as she had once more regained her power,
she surrounded herself with progressive officials, turned out all the
great conservatives except Jung Lu, and dispossessing the son of Prince
Tuan, at the time of her death selected her sister's grandchild and
proclaimed him successor to her son and heir to the Emperor Kuang Hsu,
in the following edict:

"Inasmuch as the Emperor Tung Chih had no issue, on the fifth day of
the twelfth moon of that reign (January 12, 1875) an edict was
promulgated to the effect that if the late Emperor Kuang Hsu should
have a son, the said Prince should carry on the succession as the heir
of Tung Chih. But now the late Emperor has ascended upon the dragon to
be a guest on high, leaving no son, and there is no course open but to
appoint Pu I, the son of Tsai Feng, the Prince Regent, as the successo