uted, and Tantsetung and five other leaders were
beheaded.

Now, however, dying Tantsetung's brave words have already been
fulfilled: "You may put me to death, but a thousand others will rise
up to preach the same doctrine." A new reign has come; the Empress
Dowager, dying, has been succeeded by a mere boy, whose father, the
Prince Regent, holds the imperial sceptre. But the sceptre is no
longer all-powerful. {94} For the first time in all the cycles of
Cathay the voice of the people is stronger than the voice of the
Throne. Men do not hesitate any day to say things for which, ten years
ago, they would have paid the penalty with their heads.

There are many things that give one faith in the future of China, but
nothing else which begets such confidence as the success of the
crusade against the opium habit. Four years ago, when the news went
out that China had resolved to put an end to the opium habit within
ten years--had started on a ten years' war against opium--there were
many who scoffed at the whole project as too ridiculous and quixotic
even for praise; there were more who regarded it as praiseworthy but
as being as unpromising as a drunkard's swearing off at New Year's,
while those who expected success to come even in twice ten years
hardly dared express their confidence among well-informed people.

"If there is anything which all our contact with the Chinese has
taught more unquestionably than anything else, it is that the Chinaman
will always be a slave to the opium habit." So said a professedly
authoritative American book on China, published only five years ago,
and to hold any other opinion was usually regarded as contradictory to
common sense. "We white Americans can't get rid of whiskey
intemperance with all our moral courage and all our civilization and
all our Christianity. How then can you expect the poor, ignorant
Chinaman to shake off the clutches of opium?" So it was said, but
to-day the most tremendous moral achievement of recent
history--China's victory over opium-intemperance already assured and
in great measure completed, not in ten years, but in four--stands out
as a stinging rebuke to the slow progress our own people have made in
their warfare against drink-intemperance.

To shake off the opium habit when once it has gripped a man is no easy
task. Officials right here in Peking, for example, died as a result of
stopping too suddenly after the {95} edict came out announcing that no
opium vic