the habit. But we remember that the
physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.

Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
Yuen-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
Yuen-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Yuen-nan
dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.

Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
throne--father, mother, brothers, sisters--were all put to death, most
of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
shown to him afte