g from them the state of feeling among the people, he
induced the viceroy to take prompt measures to prevent an outbreak.
At one time a Boxer army from the south was about to cross the
river and destroy the foreign settlement. Chang, when appealed
to, frankly confessed that his troops were in sympathy with the
Boxers, and that being in arrears of pay they were on the verge
of revolt. Fraser found him the money by the help of the Hong Kong
Bank; the troops were paid; and the Boxers dispersed.

The same problem confronted Liu, the viceroy of Nanking; and it
was solved by him in the same way. Both viceroys acted in concert;
but to which belongs the honour of that wise initiative can never
be decided with certainty. The foreign consuls at Nanking claim it
for Liu. Mr. Sundius, now British consul at Wuhu, assures me that
as Liu read the barbarous decree he exclaimed, "I shall repudiate
this as a forgery," adding "I shall not obey, if I have to die for
it." His words have a heroic ring; and
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suggest that his policy was not taken at second-hand.

A similar claim has been put forward for Li Hung Chang, who was at
that time viceroy at Canton. Is it not probable that the same view
of the situation flashed on the minds of all three simultaneously?
They were not, like the Peking princes, ignorant Tartars, but Chinese
scholars of the highest type. They could not fail to see that compliance
with that bloody edict would seal their own doom as well as that
of the Empire.

Speaking of Chang, Mr. Fraser says: "He had the wit to see that
any other course meant ruin." Chang certainly does not hesitate
to blow his own trumpet; but I do not suspect him of "drawing the
longbow." Having the advantage of being an expert rhymer, he has
put his own pretensions into verses which all the school-children
in a population of fifty millions are obliged to commit to memory.
They run somewhat like this:

"In Kengtse (1900) the Boxer robbers went mad,
And Peking became for the third time the prey of fire and sword;
But the banks of the Great River and the province of Hupei
Remained in tranquillity."

He adds in a tone of exultation:

"The province of Hupei was accordingly exempted
From the payment of an indemnity tax,
And allowed to spend the amount thus saved
In the erection of schoolhouses."

In these lines there is not much poetry; but the fact which they
commemorate adds one more wreath to
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a brow alread